Scary Stories, Part 2
DEATH PANEL
By Philip Weinrich
The night shift at Athens Regional was usually pretty quiet. While many of the nurses complained it messed up their schedules, Sandy actually preferred nights. Without the distractions of visitors, checkouts and doctors on rounds, she could focus on the job and be keenly aware of her patients’ needs. The reduced staffing kept her on her toes, ready to respond to any emergency. Sandy helped keep death at bay while her patients slept.
She knew this was not just hyperbole: Death crept in the hospital’s shadows and moved in the corners of hallways where the lights didn’t quite reach. Sometimes Sandy could see vague glimpses of it as she entered through the Talmadge Tower. Other times it was more palpable; she could actually see it move in her peripheral vision. Those nights, she knew she had to keep her senses sharp or lose a patient for sure.
The shift started out normal enough. Less than half the rooms occupied, no new patients on the floor, and most of those recuperating. Only Mrs. Henderson in 3237 seemed to be getting worse. Sandy was the charge nurse that night, so she wrote her name on Mrs. Henderson’s chart. If anything was going to come after that sweet old lady, it was going to have to come through her.
The nurses started getting everyone settled for the night. Pain meds were administered, vital signs were taken, and last minute needs were attended to. The hallway lights were dimmed so no one would be disturbed when the nurses entered the rooms for IV checks. Out of the corner of her eye, Sandy noticed something move behind a crash cart as she walked to Mrs. Henderson’s room. Tensing slightly, she peeked in and said, “I’ll take good care of you tonight.”
She couldn’t let on to the others that anything was wrong, so she busied herself with paperwork, always keeping 3237 on the edge of her sight. The nurses chatted about kids and school while Sandy kept track of every shadow that moved down the hallway. As the night drew on, most of them went to check on patients or retrieve labwork. Sandy knew it wouldn’t be long now.
“Hey, I’m going downstairs for a cup of coffee. You want me to bring you one?” asked Jill, Sandy’s closest co-worker.
“Yeah, that would be nice,” Sandy said, knowing full well that she probably wouldn’t get to drink it. “Cream, no sugar.”
“I know.” Jill pressed the elevator button. “Don’t miss me too much.” The doors closed and Sandy was alone at the nurses’ station.
There wasn’t much time. She would have to risk looking away from Mrs. Henderson’s room, pretending to be absorbed in her paperwork if she hoped to get the shadows to solidify before someone returned. She grabbed some charts and began filing them at the back of the office. She glanced at a Mylar balloon a patient had left behind just in time to see a man in a white coat enter 3237. She took off her shoes so they wouldn’t squeak and crept down the hall, grabbing a hypodermic as she passed a crash cart.
Peering in the door, Sandy saw the man and two half-shadow, half-solid creatures standing around Mrs. Henderson’s bed. The monitor showed her vital signs weakening, as if they were draining her life from her. Sandy slipped in, put her arm around his throat and the needle at his jugular.
“Tell them to leave.” The man nodded slightly and they melted into the shadows. “I know you’re not a doctor. Who are you?”
“Oh, come now, Sandy. You know who we are. You’ve been fighting us for years,” he said in a menacing, hollow voice. “But, if you like, you can use the colloquial term and call us the ‘Death Panel’. We decide who lives… and who dies.”
“Not if I can help it,” she hissed, plunging the needle in his neck. He howled and slammed her against the wall. Sandy slid to the floor and slipped into shadows.
A nurse was treating his wound when the responding officer asked him, “So, any idea why she did this, Doc?”
“She kept babbling about ‘death panels.’ Must be one of those anti-Obamacare nuts. You better keep a close eye on her.”
“Don’t worry,” the officer said. “They’ve got her wrapped tight. You gonna be okay, Doc?”
“I’m fine,” he said with an icy smile. “As a matter of fact, I’ll be back to check on Mrs. Henderson later tonight.”
THE OBSTRUCTIONISTS
By Adam Rainville
“Obamacare will destroy America.”—Paul Broun, U.S. Representative. Georgia, District 10
“It’s like Athens is this little blue island in a sea of red.”—Anonymous UGA Student
Bodies. Bloated. Attracting flies that lay eggs in exposed cavities slowly oozing yellowish fluids. Smelling to high hell, enough to make you cover your nose if you’re nearby. Enough to make your eyes water if you’re unlucky enough to find yourself downwind.
They’re piled chest high, so many that they form a wall. You can barely see the men on the other side, guarding the only place that could have helped the poor souls who recently departed this world.
Hopefully, for a better, kinder home.
This is what happened.
I’d heard the debates. Arguments and back-and-forths on the sins and virtues of “socialist” health care. It seemed there’d always be a stalemate on the issue.
A teeter-totter forever poised in a horizontal position.
I knew a lot of people liked the president’s plan. Those whose employers didn’t provide coverage. Those with a history of heart problems, diabetes or children unfortunate enough to draw the short straw from the genetic lottery. To them, the Affordable Care Act was a godsend.
Their opposition: the wealthy, those lucky enough to land jobs with benefits, folks the Lord gifted with perfect health who’d never seen a medical bill or how it can drain one’s savings and plummet him or her into poverty. They were scared the ACA would raise prices, kill the economy.
I’ve seen what fear can make people do.
I’ve seen it in the eyes of men claiming to defend something that didn’t exist.
Our local representative on the television:
“My constituents, fellow conservatives, the proud people of Georgia. I’d like to issue a call to action. Just as I’ve stood strong against the president’s un-American, tyrannical policies, I want you to help me block the implementation of Obamacare in any way possible. Now, there are those in my district who think they can get a free ride and steal from their hard-working, neighbors. It’s time we stand together against them and do everything within our power to stop this atrocity. Will you help me?”
It didn’t take long. If one thing can be said, it’s that they’re excellent organizers.
441, 316, 29, all choking with traffic. Pickup trucks, motorhomes, SUVs pulling trailers.
I saw their bumper stickers.
“I’ll keep my change. Nobama.”
“Obamacare: To Die For.”
The president’s face in Heath Ledger Joker makeup.
There are two hospitals in Athens. St. Mary’s and Athens Regional. They’re both good hospitals. Some folks have their preferences, but if you walk into either one sick or hurting, they’ll fix you right up.
We didn’t know what the influx was about until the motorcade surrounded those places of healing. By sundown, they’d formed a wall of automobiles and men, cutting the hospitals off from those who needed them most.
They had their weapons. Pistols. Shotguns. Semi-automatics.
The second amendment, right to bare arms. Seems there were things these people were willing to standfor.
Teeter-totter, and these people were the fat kids.
No one got through without their consent.
Requirment: current paystub showing a deduction for medical insurance.
Invalid: government subsidized insurance, insurance purchased from an exchange, those without papers.
The first true protester pulled his car to the wall a week after it formed. A man got out, eyes sad rather than angry. He pulled a body, his wife, from the passenger seat and lovingly laid her at their feet. Men with guns, unwilling to leave their posts, did nothing.
Soon, more bodies were stacked like bricks without mortar.
The teeter-totter shifts.
Still, the men with guns didn’t flinch.
Until they did.
After a couple of days, burly, bearded men held instruments of violence in one hand and clutched their stomachs with the other. They thought their guns would protect them. Coughing. Vomiting. Sweating from foreheads into bloodshot eyes. Women and children passing out and falling down.
The corpses of the denied made them sick and now they too were dying. They needed help.
The first out of the building was a nurse. She placed a motorhome child on a gurney and wheeled it inside. She was followed by doctors, interns, specialists. Hostages caring for their captors.
That’s what the circle didn’t understand.
We’re Georgians. We’re Americans. We care for those in need, no matter their circumstances.
The stalemate was broken, teeter-totter again level.
But at what cost?
OBAMA FLU
By Caitlin Conn
“I’d recommend a flu shot,” the nurse stated overenthusiastically. Sally was visiting the doctor’s office for the first time in decades, thanks to the implementation of Obamacare. As a poor woman, Sally of course held no job and in fact spent most days smoking weed and scarfing cheese curls. The thought of the flu interfering with her daily indulgences convinced her to accept the nurse’s offer.
Before checking out with the receptionist, Sally began to feel light-headed. She noticed a bathroom down the hall and decided a splash of cold water might help. Inside, Sally found her neighbor Joanna mopping the floor. Joanna was a graduate student at the University of Georgia; why on earth was she performing janitorial work?
“Joanna, what are you doing?” Sally questioned.
Joanna blinked nervously, her eyes brimming with unwelcome tears. “Oh, I…I…I got kicked out of my...my…my program,” she stammered. Now, like most Obamacare beneficiaries, Sally was intellectually lazy. She preferred to think as little as possible and accept whatever she was told. Still, the nervousness in Joanna’s voice was worrying.
“Joanna, what’s wrong?” Sally implored. “You can tell me. I never leave my couch anyway, so there’s no chance of your secrets getting out.”
Joanna checked each stall to ensure no one was hiding. She locked the door to the bathroom and in a panicked voice began to share her story.
“It’s awful. Awful! They’re experimenting here. It’s in the flu shots. Don’t you understand why Obama wanted everyone to have access to health care?!”
“Slow down,” Sally ordered, bracing herself against the sink to fight a sudden assault of vertigo. “What’s in the flu shots?”
Joanna drew a few long breaths before speaking again. “They’re not flu shots at all, Sally. They contain a carefully engineered virus that turns people into mindless communist zombies. That’s why Obama wants everyone to have healthcare! He can turn everyone into a loyal follower with this specially formulated zombie vaccine!”
Sally tried to laugh but found herself coughing up blood instead. Suddenly, Joanna’s fear didn’t seem so unfounded. “Tell me more,” she demanded, wiping the blood from her mouth before Joanna could see it.
“You got a flu shot, didn’t you?” Joanna questioned. “You don’t have long. This virus was developed at the CDC in Atlanta. It’s a modified version of Ebola with a much shorter incubation time and virtually zero mortality. You’ll survive, but you won’t be you anymore.”
“How do you know all this?” Sally cried, desperately hoping Joanna had simply lost her mind. After all, the bloody cough could just be a result of yesterday’s pot smoking marathon.
“They tried to vaccinate me,” Joanna explained. “But I’m immune. When I was little, my parents took me to Africa. I got lost in the wilds of Kenya, but a young boy named Barack found me and took me to the very hut where he had been born. Outside the hut was a caged monkey. I tried to pet the monkey, and it bit me. A week later, after my parents had found me, I came down with Ebola. Miraculously I recovered, and now I’m immune to Obama flu.”
“Obama flu?” Sally repeated skeptically, now fighting hard to stand against the stabbing headache tearing apart her temples. “But that doesn’t explain why you’re here.”
Joanna continued, “One of the nurses here saw me on the street last week. Obviously, the vaccine hadn’t worked. She sent a team to kidnap me, and now I’m a slave to the administration.” Joanna lifted a pant leg to reveal a tracking device locked around her ankle. Despite feeling physically horrible, Sally remained dubious. Her disbelief vanished, however, when she caught sight of herself in the mirror.
Sally’s head was shrinking at a slow but noticeable pace; surely this was due to the gradual degradation of her mind. A tattoo of a hammer and sickle was emerging on the side of her neck. She struggled to hold onto consciousness as the virus began to disintegrate her soul. For her last words, Sally cried, “Why here? Why Athens?”
Joanna’s eyes narrowed in a judgmental glare. “Obama knew this town was so unreasonably liberal that communist zombies would go unnoticed. If only we had come to our senses sooner! If only we had embraced the conservative values of our wise brother Paul Broun!”
Realizing her own liberal foolishness, Sally lost her will to live. She succumbed to the Obama flu, her body now operating as a communist zombie.
THE BIG BLUE BUS
By Jim Baird
Everyone said, “Great idea.” Dress to the nines, go to the park and ride, and “do” downtown Athens in Halloween season.
I dressed as a Roman-era mid-eastern messianic itinerant preacher. I had the robe with rope belt, the reddish beard and long auburn locks, the high brow, the sandals, everything but the ring of light glowing around the parietal plates.
Our group’s characters included a pregnant mummy with a ripped bodice, a “defrocked” priest, so much so that all he wore (a la Gary Snyder) was a jock strap, sturdy hiking boots, and the turned around clerical collar. A “soap on a rope” hung heavy ‘round his neck and swung to and fro like a hankering anchor, a single, slippery rosary bead with letters in relief that warned, “Thou shalt not boweth down in the shower too low round this brother.” There was a punctured Batman fan from Colorado and a Newtown first grader. Another wore a public official’s attire, a black three-piece with dark glasses and a fedora and spats and an oversized “instrument” case of a curious weight and a little too much length.
Over our wait at the bus stop ominous clouds cast a greenish and sickening umbrage, swirling in a seething tower till a ray of light burst through from the west, a beam so bright it blinded our party’s every eye just briefly enough to mask the arrival of The Big Blue Bus.
Its destination plate said “Obamacare—The Future.” Longer, shinier, sleeker and of more modern lines than any of the group expected, its softly footlit boarding ramp glided without a whisper to the tarmac, and our group found itself transported aboard.
Up and down the enormous, roomy cabin we gazed in amazement at the vehicle’s capacity for passengers. Way in the back, we could just make out a sign that said, “Liars, Gamblers and Midnight Ramblers Section”. On video screens mounted at regular spacing through the whole cabin’s length smiled the Captain’s countenance, which some say looks Kenyan or maybe even Muslim, but which my group knew as the one called “Big O”.
The ride on this bus, despite stops to take on all who flagged it from the side of the road, took us higher than we’d ever been before, where horizons receded into palettes of color only describable as glorious. Who cared if we ever got downtown?
Then came the jostle, the judder, the jolt, the jarring clap of the thundering bolt and the toe-stumping stop-on-a-dime that we knew w as the sign of the turn of some big machine’s screw. The bus body teetered and rocked to and fro, atop a wood trestle we’d all come to know, and with a creosote tinge on the odor of fear, we all, craft and cargo, tipped off of the pier.
Trail Creek below was receptive and wide, and deeper than anyone might have surmised. It swallowed the bus, the whole crowd and crew, and only coughed up the lucky us few.
We staggered ashore and limped through the dark, up the Greenway Trail toward the Mama’s Boy’s ark, but were there met with less than a neon glow, as the building was lit just with candles, you know.
Out front at the hitching posts stuck in the dirt stood a mule team and wagon whose crew looked less than alert. They looked up from their mumbly peg and with shame admitted they couldn’t do much they were so poorly outfitted. The ferry was out due to family feuds, but they’d help us get to a local meds dude. Down by the riverbanks, Broun kept a tent, and if you could afford his fees, he might amputate with consent.
My leg had a serious festering gash, having hit several timbers on the fall from the crash. I got a bullet to bite and a local stiff drink, and lay on a cot outside the tent flap, till I could no longer bear what I heard made me think.
I summoned up memorable movie-like moves, and settled on one Kevin Costner had used. I pulled on the sandals, gathered up robe and staff, and as I limped on my way heard the sinister laugh of some by standing jerk with a college kid smirk, saying there goes some more of Darwin’s devil’s work.
MEATY BEANS
By Jamie
When Tina shows up for work, she finds the lights off and the doors locked.
“What the..?” she murmurs, feeling confused before understanding and exasperation set in. It takes her a moment to remember who was supposed to open that day.
“Damn it, Rick.”
Rick is the third employee this month to be a no call, no show. Great. Now she’d have to let another worker go, be even more short-staffed and take on what seemed like increasingly endless shifts. Tina hadn’t even been home for six hours before she had to return to work.
And the store had also lost the opportunity to earn a day’s profit. Mr. Kendall, the owner of the butcher/coffee shop Meaty Beans!, couldn’t afford any more hits. He was a nice old man, a bit weird (who opens such a strange business in Athens during a recession? She guesses he must have thought the coffee side would appeal to the students—it doesn’t), but really just sweet. Tina knew he must be lonely. The store wasn’t doing great and last she heard Mrs. Kendall had taken the kids and bailed. That was a few months ago. Poor Mr. Kendall had been inconsolable for days, and it was only recently that he had begun to perk up. She hoped this recent fiasco wouldn’t hurt him and send him back into his depression.
Tina retrieves the hidden key for the store and is about to unlock the doors when she spots the wheel of Rick’s bike peeking from around the corner of the building. She quickly goes from feeling annoyed to flat out furious.
“Rick, you better not be getting stoned and eating bacon. Not again,” Tina whispers angrily. She whips open the door and marches straight to the back of the store to give Rick a piece of her mind. And the nerve, to hurt Mr. Kendall’s business, when the kind man gave him a job after no one else would! The ungrateful stoner.
But the oppressive darkness of the dead store slows her steps, and Tina immediately regrets not turning on the lights when she first came in.
She can’t be sure now, but she thought she heard the unmistakable THWACK of the meat cleaver just as she was coming in.
Her breathing suddenly seems very loud.
“Rick?” she calls, less confident now.
Tina screams when the back lights come on, but it’s only Mr. Kendall. He’s wearing a concerned smile and a bloody apron.
“Tina! Are you all right?”
She laughs, giddy with relief, and starts toward him.
“I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ve always been afraid of the dark, and I was so mad at Rick for not opening the store, leaving his bike out front -“
Mr. Kendall cuts her off.
“I left the bike outside? I must remember to dump it,” he says under his breath.
Tina, who is almost beside him, stops.
“What?”
Mr. Kendall visibly shudders, then reaches out and lays a hand on Tina’s shoulder, guiding her to the back of the store. Blood soaks into her t-shirt.
The smell of coffee beans and raw meat has always made Tina sick, but now she feels dizzy from the stench that assaults her nose when the door to the prep area opens.
First, all she notices is the blood. Buckets and buckets worth of glaring red.
“Tina, I can’t lose this business. You know I’m barely hanging on as it is. After my wife said she was leaving … And now I’m going to have to provide insurance for a bunch of spoiled college brats. It’s too much to bear, Tina! You must understand. I have to cut some of my full-time employees.”
Too late, she sees the body. Rick’s eyes, separated from his head and lying on the tray beside his dismembered body, stare in frozen surprise and fear at Tina.
“CUT some of my full-time employees! HA! Get it, Tina?”
She screams, but it’s too late.
A LONG, HEALTHY LIFE
By Erin Lovett
Woke up alone. Tends to be the case when you sleep under a bench. But this felt… different. I heard my own heartbeat and shuddered, forgetting it had been there all along. In my left hand, a bouquet of stolen flowers. In my right, a bloody rag. I had almost forgotten the fall—then the pain came back, a throbbing tidal wave, my head a limp child caught in the undercurrent. I touched my head, felt the wet gash, raw and embedded with bits of gravel.
Hospital.
No use waiting for the bus. They don’t like me. No sir, sorry sir, threats of police.
I stumbled to the roadside, stood there like a man at the precipice of a great depth. No cars. No bus. No sound. Alone.
Across the street, the bright storefronts of downtown stared blankly back at me. Just last night I had been selling flowers to hoards of laughing students. Or, had it been longer?
I stooped to pick up a discarded newspaper to replace the rag as my bandage. I glanced at a headline, comprehended vaguely. HEALTH CARE. NEW. PROMISE. DESERVE. OBAMACARE. FUTURE. LONG, HEALTHY LIFE.
I pressed the paper against the wound, wincing. It came away blood-soaked. The president’s face looked up from the newsprint, the whites of his eyes and teeth stained red.
Walked two miles, saw no one. The world had emptied out. I walked down the middle of Broad Street, limping like a lonely zombie.
Finally: hospital. A sterile sentinel, quiet. I felt suddenly uneasy, my gut urging me to turn around, go back. I felt a fear like a dog growling at the stupid black nothing of a shadow.
I stood just far enough from the sliding glass doors that they couldn’t sense me. A droplet of blood ran like sweat down my cheek and landed on my ancient boot. Last winter, Marvin told me they couldn’t handle another re-soling, and I’d have to give them up. I told him I was going to die in these boots. Suddenly I thought, Maybe I will.
But not here. I forced myself forward, and the sliding doors opened for me, but it did not feel like a welcome. The hospital was quiet but for a gentle whirring sound, mechanical, reassuring, that was suddenly, startlingly broken by the sound of a human voice.
“Are you here to register?”
I turned dizzily to face a clean-cut man in a doctor’s coat, grinning, holding a clipboard as if a shield bearing his nation’s flag.
“I hit my head,” I mumbled, still in shock.
“Yes, but, are you here to register?” He gave me a reassuring, somewhat patronizing smile.
“Register for what?” I asked, feeling woozy.
“For Obamacare! What else?”
“I… I’m homeless.”
“Have you been living under a rock?” he asked playfully, taking me by the shoulder and guiding me down the hall. “Obamacare of today is nothing like Obamacare of the past! You see, we had to move away from the old system. No more compromises! Just think!”
He squeezed my shoulder like an old pal and turned, his eyes glittering with excitement.
“What’s better than insurance?… A guarantee!”
He winked, and suddenly we were standing in a room the size of an airplane hangar, looking at… at what?
Before us lay hundreds of white, coffin-shaped machines, whirring peacefully in endless rows. I touched the hard white plastic of one nearest us. It bore a name tag and ID number. I felt the soft vibration of the machine and jerked away, feeling in my gut what I knew to be the proximity of a human body.
“Is this… a morgue?” I whispered. The man patted the box beside him.
“This,” he said smiling, “is a guarantee.”
“I don’t understand… ”
“A health care plan that literally guarantees a long, healthy life! With the cryogenic technology perfected by the Obama administration, Americans can live beyond their predicted life expectancy, risk free!”
“In a box?”
“In a cryogenic preservation tank!” He laughed, flipping through his clipboard. “Don’t worry, we’ll have you set up in no time.”
I looked around me at the tanks as he started filling out my registration. Alive. Healthy. Promise. Deserve.
“Just sign here, please.”
I hesitated.
“Do I have to take off my boots?” I asked.
He shrugged.
“I don’t suppose that would be a problem.”
“All right then.”
I set my flowers down purposefully on the nearest tank, a simple farewell, and signed my name on the crisp black line.
FEAST
By Ashley Brooks
His alarm had been blaring for an hour, but still he lies in bed with his knees shriveled up into his hollow chest, paralyzed by the searing cataclysm in his abdomen.
“Turn that crap off! Dean! You dead, bro? Deaner! You got a phone call!”
The sound of his roommate’s fists on the door roused him from his delirium, and he uncoiled his legs from underneath the blanket, gasping as the change of position sent him crumpling to the floor.
“What the hell was that? AYYYYE! Lemme in!” the doorknob jiggled, but the door did not open, and the fist pounding was replaced by sharp kicks.
Dean lifted his head off of the ground. The alarm was still screaming from the top of the dresser, but the most he could do was unplug it. His head flopped back onto the floor, and he panted, inhaling three years of ashes, cat hair and whatever other microbial disasters might live in his carpet.
The kicking stopped as the door burst open, and his roommate Zeke entered, uninvited.
“Whoa, one too many Baller Shots at Boar’s Head last night, eh? Here man, phone for you. I think it’s your job.” he set the phone on the ground next to Dean’s head.
“Huuuuuumphgn”
“Dean? It’s Sophie. This is the second day in a row you’ve missed work; you better have a doctor’s note.”
“Can’t.”
“That means it’s an unexcused absence, and a write-up. Why exactly can’t you get to a doctor’s, if you’re so ill?”
“No insurance.”
“No excuse. You know they just passed that law? Obamacare?”
“Huuumphgn”
“Why don’t you go to the emergency room?”
“No, HELL no.” said Zeke who could hear the entire conversation. “The E.R. means co-pays and prescriptions and a gigantic bill. You owe me rent. Tell her you’ll survive.”
Dean lies comatose, listening to Zeke rant with one ear and Sophie reprimand him with the other.
“Water.” said Dean, after Sophie hung up.
“Dude they’re gonna can you for sure. You realize that, right? The rent is coming up due, and it ain’t like freaking Walter pulls his weight-”
A drool puddle was forming on the carpet, but Dean couldn’t fathom how his mouth was still producing saliva.
“I need… water.”
“There’s the bathroom.” said Zeke, not moving.
Dean stayed on the ground, and the voice of his other roommate, Walter, was heard from the hallway.
“Poor Fritters. I can’t believe I’m about to clean out her litter box for the very last time.” he said.
“About time that cat died. Made the house smell like a zoo.” said Zeke.
“Sucks for you Dean. Next season’s compost haul for your garden is gonna suffer now that that little fertilizer machine is… ”
“What?” said Dean through clenched teeth.
Walter hesitated. “Yeah, I always composted her poop when I cleaned out her box.”
“No,” moaned Dean.
“I thought you said to put all organic material in there.”
“Dude, cats carry worms.” said Zeke. His face lit up with realization. “Aaaaaaw, man Dean… You’ve been eating those garden vegetables for like, four months. Siiiiick. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with you.”
With a final, determined burst of strength, Dean reached for the laptop buried under the dirty laundry. Delirious with pain and driven to the brink of horrified desperation, he tried to type the address of the health insurance marketplace into the browser with shaking fingers.
Zeke peered over his shoulder at the pathetic typing attempt.
“What are you even trying to write?”
“In- sur- ance.”
“Oh, you mean that website they’re griping about all over the news? that healthcare.gov thing?”
Dean responded by moaning.
“I dunno if it works like that, man.”
“Help… me.”
“All right, whatever you say.” Zeke leaned over and typed the address into the browser. An error message flashed up onto the screen.
“Server’s down. They’re crying about that on the news, too. Hey, Dean? Deaner!”
Dean’s body writhed as if it were being exorcised, and then fell still but for the terminal fluttering of his eyelids.
Just beneath the surface of his skin, a six foot tapeworm nestled against the compromised walls of his large intestine. The tapeworm had enjoyed months and months of non-stop dining, and the exorbitant supply of food had caused it to grow so large that it blocked its host’s appendix. It now wallowed in the warm puss and septic bile which had been seeping out of the ruptured appendix since the previous night, content to swim amongst the putrid filth.
PARASITE
By Joshua Mays
I can feel the change coming over me; like something moving behind my skin. It’s only been a few days, but it’s coming. Bringing with it that overwhelming drive; that urge to consume anything I can. An unrelenting hunger that I can’t sate. My only comfort comes from the soft glow of the television as I stare into it, or the bright distraction of my cell phone. Any effort to think or work brings a shattering headache, and then dizziness. I've decided to write this before I can't. Before it becomes too hard to do anything that requires effort.
Obamacare sounded great, especially in a college town like Athens, but nobody read the fine print! When it was in effect, they began to enforce the mandatory vaccinations. We were all lined up, arms out, ready for the needle. We were eager to let them heal us. The vaccinations worked, too. All except the one. The parasite wasn't dead; and now, it's infected our minds, worming its way into the soft tissue of our brains.
I was one of the few who spoke out against it, but it didn't take long for me to fall in line with the rest. I couldn’t afford the fines anymore, and at the time, the symptoms hadn’t shown up yet. It started slowly, but then it seemed like everyone was getting sick at a startling rate. My friends stopped going to work and school. Instead, they stayed at home to gorge themselves on cheap snacks and awful television. Every time I tried to get them to come out, they declined my invitations. It was like my social life was falling apart. I couldn’t figure out why.
One day, in a fit of desperate loneliness, I stormed into my friend’s house and was hit by a disgusting stench that clung to every surface like a film of grease. I couldn’t figure out what the smell was until I found him, sitting in a chair in front of his TV. The volume was blaring, but he didn’t seem to notice. He didn’t even see me standing there. I waved and shouted, but he continued to shovel food into his mouth, looking through me as if he could still see the television. The worst part was his eyes. Something flickered and moved behind them, bulging them from their sockets. It took me a second to catch my breath, but once I did, I ran. I ran out of the apartment complex and headed back home. My friend had been a hard working contributing member of society. What he had become was… I can’t say it.
As I ran away, it became apparent that he wasn’t the only one. I passed others like him; dingy and preoccupied with their cell phones. The street stunk as they stumbled around, bumping into one another without looking up. I needed to find a place to hide out, but that seemed impossible. Everywhere I went, the parasite was there, always a step ahead. It taunted me with images of what I was to become, what I'm becoming.
With nowhere else to go, I came back here and boarded up my place. With plenty of food to last me, I began to watch the television for information. That's when I realized how comforting it had become. The mindless programming seemed to ease my troubled mind. I watched a lot of things like soap operas, daytime talk shows, and reality TV, but mostly, I watched the news.
The government said they were going to take care of us all. That they are going to start sending out a check every month to help pay bills and such, but that's not enough! Money won't give me back my independence; my ability to think and to act of my own volition. Nothing will. It's too late. Pretty soon, I won't even be able to take care of myself.
It's growing faster. I can feel it moving around inside my head now. It's squirming around in there, changing my thoughts for its own awful desires. I can hear it speaking to me, telling me all the things I deserve, all the things I should take for my own. It's grown so quickly, and soon I won't be able to write. I know I'm only hours from complete mental shutdown. A few weeks after that, it'll explode forth from my eyes with its flailing tendrils and make its true presence known. We will be together; one and the same. A parasite.
FLASH!
By Fergus Davidson
Athens Banner-Herald & Observer-Flagpole
Nov. 1, 2013
Page A1
Athenians Stunned by Health Care Actions of Rep. Lastname
ATHENS—Local residents who attended a forum about the Affordable Care Act hosted Thursday by U.S. Rep. First N. Lastname were shocked by the revelation that the Republican, who is also a licensed physician, was exploiting the new law for his estranged brother's medical needs.
The audience at the historic Seney-Stovall Chapel was angry about difficulties with the rollout of the health care legislation, widely known as Obamacare. Many Athenians have been frustrated in their attempts to register for health insurance, citing difficulties with the federal government's new website. In the first days of enrollment, five computers available for public use at the Athens-Clarke County Public Library burst into flames.
Rep. Lastname's staff urged him to hold the forum after mounting constituent complaints about both access to the care and screenings for the program conducted at his Athens medical office.
"I thought preexisting conditions didn't matter anymore," said local waitress and model K'Psee (pronounced KAY-see) Lund, 32. "Thing is, I've got reverse knees and a lazy nostril. And I smoke, but only when I drink. Which is every day, but only after my shift, and that ends at 2:30 in the afternoon. So I figured I would be OK.
"But when I got to Doctor, or Representative, Lastname's office, he asked me all these questions about how old I was and how old the Earth is. He hit both my knees with a little yellow hammer to see if my reflexes work, and they do, real good. But then he asked my blood type and it got really weird.
"He told me, 'This is O. Bama. Care,' and I wouldn't be enrolled unless I gave him a pint of blood every month. Then he told the nurse, 'Ram her. Jam her.'"
Lund's blood type is O positive, the most common blood type in the U.S. Other type O applicants experienced similar questioning from the representative.
"Look, I've given blood many times," said school administrator and perpetually earnest county functionary Mikey Stumpf. "But never with a nurse asking, 'Doctor, shall I unleash the Crimson Tide?' And a pint of blood every month seems like a lot for a fruitarian with a busy schedule of public service."
Rep./Dr. Lastname refused to answer for his unusual behavior. "Blood is the lifeblood of the blood that flows through all men, women, children and, come to think of it, animals and some oranges in this country," he bellowed. "If I am collecting blood, I have my own reasons. And my unquestioned integrity is why I was elected to represent you in Washington by standing up against the federal government for the little and mid-sized people of this state, because obesity is a chronic problem we must address."
Angry constituents began to rush the stage, then the room fell silent as the doors to the auditorium opened slowly and a tall, hunched figure in a snapback cap, stained oxford cloth shirt and shredded khakis began shuffling toward the stage, grunting with every measured step.
Five minutes later, he reached the lectern and said, "Ummmmng."
Folks, I can't be silent any longer," the congressman said. "This retired zombie, whom you all know from his tireless volunteer activities in this area, especially with our schools, isn't just an attorney or a traffic hazard in Cobbham as he continues his valiant attempts to run.
"Friends, Lastname First is a husband, a father—and my brother."
The entire audience gasped. Several people fainted.
"He is also a vampire," Rep. Lastname continued. "And his blood type is O positive. Until we find cures for vampirism, zombieism, liberalism and alternative rock, I intend to help him find the nourishment he needs."
A single murky tear dripped from what remained of First's left eye as he stepped to the microphone.
"Mwauunnnngh, hunhg," the zombie attorney groaned. "Mwaunnnngh, brother. Rooooooooll Tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide. Hnng hnnnnnnnnnnng. I feel fiiiiiiiiiiiiine.
"Brains."
First slowly looked out over the nauseated audience and glanced stage right.
"Going to, hmmmmmmg, Vaaaaaaaarsity. Hungh. Brains. Rings. Jumbo O," the zombie said, dropping both the mic and his right hand with a sickening squishbang before lurching off the stage.
Another Athens forum on the Affordable Care Act will be held Monday, Nov. 11 at 7 p.m. at Herschel's Famous 34 Pub & Grill.
NIGHT AGONIES
By Shannon Smith
Evan sat up straight in bed, clutching his chest. He groaned, threw his sweat-soaked sheets to the ground, and stumbled to the bathroom of his dilapidated apartment. His nightmares were hitting like clockwork now, nightly ruining what little rest he'd have gotten anyway.
Even during his waking hours, when he closed his eyes, he saw it. Sometimes downtown, sometimes on campus, always places familiar to him becoming warped and horrific: sulfurous, blood-red skies overhead, blackened, withered grass below, stinging ash raining down and blanketing the screaming masses surrounding him. One night he saw The Arch melt, scalding innocent tourists posing for photos as it went. Another night he watched Lake Chapman at Sandy Creek turn in an instant to acid, consuming all of its inhabitants before they could make it to shore (though they put up a good fight, if their screams were any indication).
Regardless of location, he would always be surrounded by abject suffering. The unfortunates around him would fall to the ground, alternately shrieking then groaning in agony, dragging themselves along the now-scorched earth with cracked fingernails and leaving bright, bloody smudges as they went. Inevitably, one would grab him from behind, somehow catching him off-guard every single night. He would struggle but would always be overpowered by the once-human specter of pain that would start dragging him backwards towards an ever-growing pit leading to Hell (or somewhere worse). In those final, terrible moments before Evan fell backwards towards the gaping pit and was ripped awake, the thing would lean in close and whisper hoarsely into his ear: "Thanks, Obama."
BEYOND HELP
By John Stanga
A large, plaster bulldog wearing a sweater emblazoned with a G greeted Howard at the door to the Athens branch of the U.S. Department of Health, Division of Clinics. Inside, the spacious lobby was appointed with leather furniture and paintings of dry sunflowers. The low hum of fluorescent lights accompanied a smooth jazz rendition of Thriller. The ambience had been carefully planned to calm patients before their appointments. It wasn’t working. The pain in Howard’s abdomen was too intense. It felt like he had been stabbed with the jagged edge of a broken magnolia branch. None of the other patients seemed to be in worse pain, yet their unease was palpable. A young mother picked at her fingernails while her mop-headed toddler squirmed on the floor and incessantly kicked at her seat. She didn’t seem to notice or care. An old man in a wheelchair and his wife stared blankly at the wall in silence. Occasionally he would let loose a raspy, wheezing moan which would elicit a puckered grimace from his wife.
It felt warm in the lobby, but Howard was shivering and sweaty as he pulled his blue hoodie closer. He checked his phone—it had been 50 minutes already. He nervously twisted the fraying edge of his denim shorts. He stared into a painting of a sailboat drifting across placid waters, wondering what life might be like if he had a boat. “Could I make it to Cuba? Maybe things are different there. What if… “
His musing was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a stout nurse with long blonde hair coiled tightly in a bun. “Howard Phillips?” she bellowed. He hobbled after her down a narrow corridor. Her huge coarse hands were clubs; her legs were squat telephone poles. She should probably be playing linebacker for the Dawgs. She led him into a dark room, pointed to a tattered pink gown, and ordered him to change and wait.
A yellowing skeleton hung in the corner, watching Howard disrobe. “There’s nothing left to worry about, is there bud?” he asked the bones. The crinkled paper covering the examination table was lightly flecked with blood and stained with something he hoped was coffee.
“I guess the budget cuts have been deeper than I realized,” Howard thought as he gingerly slid onto the table. Only two years ago Howard would have left and found a new doctor, but now things weredifferent.
Twenty minutes later a short man with a salt-and-pepper moustache entered the room and gave Howard a warm smile and a firm handshake.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Phillips, I’m Dr. Love, and this is Nurse Craft,” he said, motioning to the blonde behemoth of a nurse from earlier who was now looming behind Dr. Love. She was carrying a cardboard filing box, which she let slap loudly on the linoleum floor.
“Mr. Phillips, you are an educated man. I don’t need to explain this to you. You understand what happened to our country. The increased access to health care flooded our clinics with addicts, hypochondriacs, immigrants and worst of all, so many poor people.” Dr. Love closed his eyes and swallowed audibly before continuing. “We couldn’t turn them away. Hell, we wanted to, but we couldn’t, because it would have been too much paperwork. So we let them in. We let everybody in. The quality of healthcare deteriorated so quickly for everybody that we just couldn’t care for anybody anymore. And now, well, now things are different.”
Harold nodded. He didn’t want a history lesson; he just wanted to be treated.
Dr. Love continued, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is it’s your appendix. It’s very treatable, but also very expensive.”
Harold sighed in relief as Dr. Love rummaged through the file box, emerging with a thick manila folder.
“But the bad news, Mr. Phillips, is that the Death Panel rejected your case.”
Harold was stunned. “What?! Why?! I have a family! I work two jobs! I volunteer! I tithe 10 percent!” He whimpered, turning his pleading eyes to Nurse Craft. “Please, please don’t do this to me!”
Dr. Love placed his hand on Howard’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Mr. Phillips, the hospital’s full. We simply can’t treat everybody, and unfortunately for you, it says in your file that you’re a Florida Gators fan. Around here, there’s nothing you can do to compensate for that.”
Nurse Craft wrapped her hairy hands around his neck and expertly crushed his windpipe with her thumbs.
THE HORROR
By Matthew Coln
In the wake of government furlough two factions were formed: Democrat and Republican. Senator Jonesboro Buttinkscut (D) and Congressman Chandler Dick (R) met in Athens, Georgia to exchange passive-aggressive handshakes. They both bloated with gas.
“Butt,” Dick said.
“Dick,” said Butt.
One farted and the other belched, and from there the line was drawn.
Five years later the city of Athens was lousy with zombies. It should be explained that the rise in population of zombies derived from liberals trying to save everyone. The Republicans became jealous of the “blue” zombie class and made their own out of middle class party members. Libertarians developed four mega zombies that went into seclusion and combined still own most of the property between Montana and the Gulf. The Green party had one zombie that, supposedly, was a vegetarian.
In an effort to give the big middle finger to the Democrats, the Republicans had somehow managed to revoke education to all people who didn’t subscribe to Forbes magazine. Education collapsed. As a result, the Democratic Party issued the vacant buildings of the University of Georgia campus as their new headquarters for human reanimation. Even the dead have the right to affordable health care.
In what used to be the cafeteria, Senator Buttinkscut entered the makeshift sterile room where two women in white coats stood on either side of a corpse on a table. The woman to the left brandished a large syringe from behind her back and injected it into the body. The senator approached the green-fleshed creature, running his fingers through its brittle and coarse hair. He leaned over and nibbled on the ear lobe of the corpse, running his hand down its thigh and pressing his lips against the cadaver’s own. Rigor mortis may have set in, but the lips were still succulent.
“Pretty baby,” he whispered seductively in its ear.
Across town in what used to be a semi-racist fraternity Congressman Dick was evangelically addressing the masses.
“And do not fear my children! God has given us our own zombie saviors to reckon with the likes of the blue-blooded devils!”
The crowd was in frenzy as he exited the staged and made way to his dressing room, where a very young and blonde boyish face caught his eye.
“You give us so much hope,” the Arian prince said.
“Fear not my child. For though they have numbers our undead have been given a holy covenant from the one true God,” he said as he softly ran his fingers down the boy’s arm and squeezed his bicep.
He smiled, “Mmmmm.”
As usual, most people were caught in the middle just trying to get by. In the ruins of Little King just trying to get by. In the ruins of Little King’s Shuffle Club Ira, Esa and Elijah stood guard as Athos frantically skirmished through bottles of booze behind the bar.
“We need to get out of here,” Ira said, watching the zombies pound on the glass windows.
“I want Jameson,” Athos exclaimed.
Esa leaned over into Ira’s ear.
“He’s still thinks it’s cool.”
“Too bad you can’t drink irony.”
“Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had meat?”
“Didn’t you eat that squirrel the other day?”
“It was a zombie. Just let me have my Jame-o.” He picked up a bottle and gulped half of its contents down his gullet. “Potty break!”
While at the urinal Athos heard a strange rustling coming from the stall next to him. Without warning he unsheathed his sword and jabbed it through the wall watching as red liquid began to pool around his feet. The others rushed in.
Elijah asked, “What happened?”
“Zombie.”
They opened the stall door to see a state representative face down in blood with his pants around his ankles.
“Any of you vote for him?”
They all shook their heads.
“Good.”
In time the two parties came to an agreement to use zombies as a slave class. This resulted in offending a large group of people and led another group to start complaining that zombies were stealing all their jobs. Congress finally settled on a mass genocide of all zombies, which offended another group of people and was frowned upon by the U.N.
Senator Butt boarded a plane heading to Thailand with two zombie brides and Congressman Dick licked his lips as he watched Justin Beiber dance across his computer screen. Just as the last zombie was being exterminated Athos nestled his cheeks onto the cold seat of the toilet after eating some bad squirrel meat.
“The horror,” he groaned, “the… horror.”
THE UNINSURED
By Nick M.
“Nobody cares this is happening?” asked Prachi.
The old man shook his head. “That's how it's always been”.
For Prachi, it all began a week ago. As he sat in his freshman seminar, he kept looking for the only reason he stayed awake in class—namely, the cute girl he was working up the courage to talk to. She'd been absent for days. Worried, he asked around; responses varied from indifference, to annoyance, to claims the girl was trying to mooch off the government. Prachi couldn't understand why he was the only one bothered by this. Soon, he started noticing other disappearances: the occasional acquaintance, his co-workers at Bolton, even his roommate. All had vanished without a trace; the only connection seemed to be that they'd all fallen ill shortly before disappearing. Prachi's repeated attempts to ask about the missing people were met with either a shrug or lengthy rants about pulling oneself up by the bootstraps.
While trying to find information at the Baxter Street library, Prachi was approached by an elderly man who had overheard the freshman's “frantic mumblings,” as he put it. Mr. Clarkson offered to explain the strange occurrences to Prachi if he had the time; the old man laughed at the look of relief and gratitude on the boy's face and began his story.
“Those who disappear become the 'Uninsured.’ Not much is known about them; most people believe only the sick or weak are taken, so they blame the victims or ignore it altogether. But I've seen young people in their prime snatched away; no one's safe. Long ago, a man named Barack understood that; he fought to make sure no one became Uninsured again. Unfortunately, due to partisan shutdowns he failed. Now, everyone thinks this is just the way things are, that there's no better way to live.”
As Mr. Clarkson finished, Prachi quickly asked, “Is there anything we can do to not be taken?”
In response, the old man pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. On it, there was an ornate “S” with two slashes cut through it.
“If you make enough of these, they'll drive away whatever turns you into the Uninsured. But not permanently, and nobody knows how many you need.”
Prachi stared as Mr. Clarkson proceeded to drop several of the symbols in the boy's hand.
“Thank you, sir, but don't you need these?”
Smiling sadly, the elderly man rolled up his left sleeve, revealing cancerous lesions up and down his arm. Mr. Clarkson told his horrified young friend that he was leaving his remaining stash of paper signs to his wife, in the hopes of protecting her after he was taken. Prachi begged the old man to keep fighting, but Mr. Clarkson's mind was made up. They eventually switched to other, less morbid topics of conversation, then parted ways.
The next day, Prachi went by the old man's house, hoping against hope he was still there. Seeing Mrs. Clarkson's tear-stained face as she answered the door confirmed his fearful suspicions. As he offered his condolences and tried to be comforting, Prachi's mind was racing. What was he going to do now? Then he remembered the paper with the funny symbols…
Prachi threw himself into making slashed “S” signs, staying up all hours of the night inscribing letters and lines on small scraps of paper. He began living in a haze, always this close to collapsing from exhaustion, but at least he was safe… Until the cough started.
Small at first, it grew louder and hoarser as he grew weaker. Then “It” came for him. The symbols he had amassed protected him for a time, but he couldn't keep up the maddening pace of creating them. Finally Prachi ran out, and that night he was taken while he limped through downtown. As he felt the cold presence wash over him, he looked around and frantically called for help. The last thing he saw as he vanished was the uncaring crowd that moved around and over him.
FLU SHOT
by Tracy Adkins
“I’m here for my flu shot…”
I spoke to the receptionist through a small window slit. Her name tag said “Becky” and gold framed glasses rode at the edge of her nose. Becky slid the window open.
“Fill these out.” She shoved a clipboard of papers at me. She thunked the window closed, then waddled away in her orange Crocs and Snoopy scrubs.
“Okay.”
It was my first visit to a new doctor in the ubiquitous medical complex off Prince Avenue, and I was starting to think I picked the wrong one. Well, so much as I had done any picking. On the Obamacare website, I answered a bunch of questions and it told me who my doctor was. Was that choosing?
I looked for an open chair and passed patients waiting, glassy eyed and slumped. I took the last chair left. The man next to me smelled like potato salad. I thought he was asleep until he spoke.
“Help me.” He whispered.
His bloodshot eyes rolled towards Becky and watered anxiously.Grey stubble was hoarfrost on chapped colorless skin. His wrinkly hand trembled out of a tattered plaid cuff.
Was he talking to me? I peered across to his other side. A young boy stared unblinking at a television and held a plastic gun by his side. Every few seconds, POW! he would pull the trigger.
On the TV, Bill O’Reilly wore a disgusted expression and warned about the evils of Obamacare.
POW! POW!
“Help me.” The old man whispered again. He turned towards me with a pleading look. “Doc is gonna send me to the panels.”
“What?” I asked.
Becky thunked her window open and inspected us with suspicion over lowered glasses. We all held our breath.
POW!
“Hurry… doc says I’m too old to give medicine to… he’s sending me to the death panels… please!”
Before Obamacare passed, we had all heard horror stories. But lots of folks that couldn’t get insurance before now could, like me! Those crazy tales were a lot of nonsense scaring innocent people.
“Look, those are just stories…”
POW!
The little boy looked me in the eye and pointed his gun right at me. “You caint have my gun, mister, it’s my riiiiight.” POW! POW!
The old man’s lips trembled and a cloudy tear welled up in his eye. He opened his mouth to speak, but the nurse opened the door.
“Sir, you can come back now… ” The nurse gestured at me. She was rotund and wore white crocs and penguin scrubs.
As I got up, the kid was glued to the TV, and the old man vacantly drooled. I followed the nurse through the door and felt daggers from Becky’s eyes escorting me.
“I didn’t get all of these filled out yet… ” I told the penguin nurse as we sat in the exam room.
“It’s okay, honey. It’s all in the computer. All that matters, anyway.”
She took the clipboard away from me and set it down.
“You sit here and we’re gonna get you that flu shot, right now.”
“Oh, okay. Boy, that’s quick. I thought I would have a long wait with all those people out there.”
“Oh no, honey, we’re gonna get you fixed up right away.” Her ruby lips parted and a blinding smile burst forth.
She pulled a syringe from a drawer and snaked the needle under my skin. When she pushed the plunger, I felt a slight sting.
“You just sit there a minute, and we’ll make sure you don’t have a reaction.”
I wanted to say “Okay” but I was too sleepy to do it.
The penguin nurse was digging in the drawer again. She pulled out a scalpel and other tools she laid out on the counter. The door opened and a man in a white coat entered.
“Is he ready?” White Coat asked the nurse, and she nodded.
“Sir, why don’t you lay back right here and get comfortable.” he suggested. His coat went from white to yellow to grey and then looked like raindrops.
I tried to say “Flu shot” but all that came out was drool.
“It’s okay, pal, it’s time for your microchip, that’s all. This will only take a moment.”
The nurse moved close to me and her lips were red poppies in a breeze.
“Shhhh… there, there honey. This is gonna solve all your problems.” She held up a tiny silver disk with a rusty pair of tweezers, and her penguins began dancing.
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