Night Terrors Vol. 9: Short Horror Stories Anthology

7 hours and 20 minutes

223 pages

The Metamorphosis

By Angelique Fawns

Seth hesitated before tossing the knife into the suitcase lying open on his antique mahogany four-poster bed. The ornate hunting blade with lamprey eels carved into the wood handle fell squarely in the middle of the overflowing clothes. The artist’s rendition of the jawless fish looked like Stephen King’s version of a leech. Many-toothed monsters. Oil lamps cast a dim light on the sweaters, shorts, t-shirts, and boxers in the well-worn leather luggage. The black bag was enormous, covered in travel stickers from farm shows all over North America, and holding up well for a 50-year-old item. He needed the space for his size 46 pants and XXXL shirts. What was he supposed to pack for an experimental medical treatment?

“Better to overpack than wish you’d brought your favorite sweats, eh Charlie?” Seth asked the miniature pig lying on the dog bed in the corner of his bedroom.

He’d inherited the knife, the suitcase, and an aggressive form of diabetes from his recently deceased father. Charlie squealed when he zipped the bag shut.

“You can’t come little pig, but no worries, I got you a hog sitter.”

He picked up a small morsel of chocolate on his bedside table and tossed it to her.

“I was saving this for a late-night snack, but if I’m serious about kicking this diabetes, I got to kick the sweet treats first.”

Charlie’s pink tongue snagged the chocolate. Seth painfully shrugged off his overalls and forced his swollen fingers to undo the snaps on his plaid shirt. He looked at the cornucopia of drugs on his bedside table. Aleve, Advil, Tylenol, CBD oil, even a tab or two of Oxy. He dry-swallowed an Advil and climbed into bed.

“Time for some shut-eye, pretty pig.”

His potbellied pet laid her head down and gave a contented grunt.

“If this treatment works, Charlie, you and I can start jogging together. We could both use more exercise.” The pig was already fast asleep, her jowls vibrating as she snored.

Seth was too nervous to fall asleep. He ran his hands over his belly. Gut fat on a thirty-year-old man was not healthy, even though he hid it pretty well on his six-feet four-inch frame. A year ago, he had moved back to the farm when his Dad died unexpectedly. His Mom had already been gone for years. Someone had to run the piggery farm. But when the time came to send the fattened pork “to market”, Seth couldn’t bring himself to slaughter any of them. The intelligence in their eyes, the way they played with each other—he half-wished he could join them and roll around ecstatically in the mud.

But what kind of pig farmer can’t kill a pig? He missed both his parents. He was annoyed he had to leave his job selling the farm’s produce at the city market, and now, he felt like a farming failure. So, he ate. And ate. And ate. He devoured everything except bacon.

Trying to force himself to sleep, he mentally envisioned his pigs jumping one by one over a hay bale. There were fifty pigs on his farm, and he was busy naming them all.

“Jump, Esmerelda! Okay, Notorious P.I.G., you’re up. Over you go, Bertha, you need more speed to clear that hay,” Seth mumbled until he was snoring like Charlie.

***

The next morning, Dolores, his closest neighbor on their remote country road, pulled into his driveway in a beat-up Ranger 4x4. She ran a tanning and mud bath business called Sun & Mud. Seth had yet to see many clients, though. He had no idea how she kept it afloat. His front door banged shut.

“Get outta bed, you handsome hunk of manhood! You’se got yer appointment with the diabetic doc today,” she hollered from the bottom of the stairs.

Scrambling out of bed, he pulled on his overalls and grabbed his suitcase. Charlie followed him down the stairs. Leaning provocatively in the doorway, Dolores was dressed in a thrift store prom dress. Pushing fifty, she wore a cheap pink wig, which matched the lace gown.

“How are you going to do farm chores dressed in that?” Seth asked.

“I’ll take good care of your farm, big man. Just come back to me good ’n healthy so we can have a hot romance already.” Dolores winked one over-mascaraed eye.

She sashayed over to pick up his suitcase sitting beside the front door. Charlie trotted into the kitchen to eat breakfast out of the automatic food dispenser.

“Are you sure this doctor knows what he’s doing?” Seth asked, grabbing his wallet and keys off the antique buffet.

“I’m tellin’ ya, this healer guy works miracles! My brother had a bad case of them diabetes and he got cured up right quick. It’s a highly experimental top-secret treatment all right! You’ll be thanking me with a deep kiss when y’all get back!”

Seth suppressed a shudder, following Dolores out to his truck. She threw the suitcase in like it was made of feathers. Though she wasn’t the prettiest lady, she radiated strength and vitality. He was slightly terrified of her. But he couldn’t keep taking care of his pigs if his feet were always sore. He needed to get his disease under control, and this felt like a final “Hail Mary”.

“Please take good care of Charlie and all my other pigs. The grain bins are full, and the water troughs need to be refilled daily.”

Seth fired up his old Ford 150. It was a beautiful fall day, and the leaves were just beginning to turn. The wind ruffled his thick black hair. The air was warm, but his hands trembled on the wheel. He took deep breaths and forced himself not to turn the truck around. Somehow, he made it to the small public dock along the sands of the enormous and tumultuous lake. The gray waves crashed against the shore, looking inhospitable. A man stood on the dock with a pontoon boat moored beside him.

Yanking the old leather suitcase behind him, he walked slowly, hoping his legs wouldn’t give way. The light spray from the lake waves was chilling. The lone figure on the dock didn’t look much like a doctor. He was tall, bald, and wearing ill-fitting surgical scrubs under a coyote fur jacket.

“Seth! Glad you could make it. I’m Doctor Damien. There is no ferry over to Serpent Island, so I’ll transport you myself. True personalized service.” He gestured to the boat. It floated on the water thanks to big barrels attached to a wide deck shaded by a tarp roof.

Seth stepped on the deck, wincing at the pain in his feet as Dr. Damien quickly untied the boat and pushed off. Sitting down on the white bench at the back of the boat, he tried to keep his eyes firmly on the horizon. He hadn’t eaten breakfast and acid curdled in his stomach. It was a relief hopping off the boat onto firm land when they got to the little island.

A bronzed muscular man, a foot taller, and twice as wide as the doctor, waited for them on a decrepit wood dock. He was also bald and tanned but had tribal tattoos decorating his skull.

“I’m Dan, the assistant. I hope your visit will be all transformative and shit.”

“Transformative? You’re not going to give me Ayahuasca or anything?” Seth wasn’t the sort to sit in a teepee drinking a poisonous drug while hunting for his spirit animal.

“No, there’ll be no hallucinogenic drugs, don’t worry, Seth,” Dr. Damien said.

“Whatever.” Dan grabbed Seth’s suitcase from him and walked off the dock onto a gravel path.

Seth couldn’t see any roads or cars on Serpent Island. From the water, it hardly looked big enough to be called an island with only one or two cottages on the white sand beach. The gravel path led into a forest and soon became a dirt trail. Pines swayed in the wind as they stepped over logs and branches strewn haphazardly on the path.

His anxiety mounted with every step. This was obviously not a typical medical center. Was he being kidnapped? He might have made a big mistake. Could he get to his knife?

“Let’s waste no time, Dan will store your suitcase, and you follow me,” Dr. Damien said.

Panicked, he watched the tattooed man wheel his suitcase, and his knife, out of sight.

“Aren’t we going to some sort of clinic? I was thinking nurses with pale yellow scrubs, bright lights, and sterile equipment?” Seth asked.

“Your treatment will be unorthodox but very effective. Have faith, my handsome friend,” Dr. Damien said.

Reluctantly, he followed the back of the doctor’s coyote fur jacket down a path deeper into the woods. The last of the sun’s rays illuminated a murky pond. They stopped at the edge and Seth took a deep breath. It was a deep, earthy smell: moss, mildew, and the decay of long-dead plants filled his nostrils. The water was a muddy brown with cattails and water grass festooning the edges.

“Time to strip down to your skivvies,” Dr. Damien said.

“What kind of treatment is this?” Seth asked, shivering, and pulled his shirt tighter around him.

“A breakthrough way of treating extreme diabetes that combines an age-old remedy along with a drug that I, myself, developed. Patent coming.” Damien plunged a needle into Seth’s bicep.

“Hey, heeeey,” Seth said, his voice sounding far away.

“Look, pig farmer, don’t make me strip you myself. You may be my sister’s type, but you’re not mine,” Dr. Damien said, dropping the cordial act.

Seth pulled off his t-shirt. A little voice at the back of his brain told him to fight and keep his clothes on. Where was his knife? That voice faded to a pleasant drone telling him everything was perfect, and of course, he should take his overalls off.

Dr. Damien helped him take a tentative step into the water. Mud squelched up from between his toes and the pond was surprisingly warm, almost bath temperature.

“Is there a hot spring feeding this pond?” Seth heard his voice ask.

“Yeah, maybe. Who knows? Now, get in. We swam in this pond as kids all the time. You’re going to be just fine,” Damien said.

Seth squinted and tried to think. Swam as kids?

“Get in!” Damien gave him a little push.

Seth slipped on the mud and landed in the pond with a thump. The buzz in his head increased. He sank into the warm water, leaving only his head unsubmerged.

“Did you actually think I was a doc? I should get an Oscar. I’m not sure what Dolores sees in you, but what she wants, she gets.” Damien walked back into the bush. Dolores? His farm sitter and flirty neighbor? Seth looked up at the trees where the reddish ball of the sun was dropping behind the pine trees. He enjoyed the shifting pattern of light on the leaves. His eyes closed.

There was a light tickling on his arm. He squirmed, trying to stay asleep.

“Leave me alone, I don’t want to get up yet.”

The tickling persisted, but now, he could feel it on his neck and chest.

“Come on. Let me sleep.”

He was so pleasantly warm, napping in this silky pond.

Wait.

Why was he sleeping in a pond? Braving the sunlight, Seth opened his eyes, and he could see a dark spot on his cheek. A lump of mud. A twitching lump.

Adrenaline woke him fully and he jumped out of the water. He looked down at his arms, his mind not comprehending. The mud was lumpy, shiny, and wiggling. He took one unnaturally thick hand covered in the brown tubes and brushed at his opposing forearm. Globs fell but not the ones directly against his skin.

It. Was. Not. Mud

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