Randy White - Dead of Night

Beside me, talking through her mask, Graves said, “All the shitty stuff I’ve seen in this business, you’d think I’d be ready for anything. Do you have any ideas? What the hell are they? And how’d they get inside him?”

I said, “I’m not sure. Give me a second.”

Applebee’s corpse lay on a collapsible gurney in the middle of the room. He was naked. The body bag beneath him had yet to be zipped. I took a couple of steps closer to the gurney, moving as if I were approaching a ledge… or something that might strike out and bite. Not looking at her, I said to Graves, “Do you have rubber gloves my size?”

She said, “Jesus Christ, you’re not going to touch one of those things, are you?”

“Maybe. I think they’re harmless-to touch, anyway. I need a closer look.”

I held out my right hand, eyes fixed on the body, until I felt her place surgical gloves into my palm.

“I think I know what they are. I’ve seen something similar, anyway. It was in Africa.” I paused for a second. “What happened to the bandage on his ankle? It’s gone now.”

“I took it off during my preliminary examination.”

I was pulling on a glove. “Then that explains it.”

The bandage had been taped over a dime-sized hole in the dead man’s ankle. The wound was black, gangrenous looking. Protruding from the hole was the head of something that was alive, active.

I moved closer as I snapped on the second glove. Took a few more thoughtful seconds to confirm that what I was seeing appeared to be the scolex, or head, and the anterior segment of a long, white parasite. Its prostomium-the tip-was knobbed. Its ventral underbelly was flat. The dorsal was ridged and segmented.

A worm.

One of several parasitic worms-a dozen or more-sprouting from the man’s body. Their movement, in chorus, gave the corpse an appearance of macabre, auguring animation. It was one of those nasty scenes that memory etches with acid, which is why I narrowed my focus from the general to the specific.

Visually, the parasite exiting from the ankle was the least repellent, and so I concentrated on it.

The thing was pencil lead-sized in diameter. The section that had already breached the hole was more than a foot long. Another two feet still lay beneath an elevated mound of blistered skin. I watched for a while, noting details that would not be shared. The parasite writhed and undulated like a baby snake fighting its way out of an egg casing.

The observation was fitting. Applebee’s body was serving as an egg casing. He’d been a vessel; host to a feeding, breathing subcommunity of parasites.

Now that the host was dead, members of the community were fleeing. They were abandoning this cooling vessel.

Every few minutes, the woman asked did I know what they were, what the hell they could be?

Some people burn adrenal excesses by talking. She chattered away before asking again: “You really think you’ve seen these things before?”

I was standing with my hands on the base of the gurney, leaning over Applebee. I was so focused, it took me a second to realize she was waiting for an answer.

“There’s a parasite I’ve seen in… West Africa, the poorest areas-Ethiopia, Nigeria. Maybe other parts of the tropics, too, but I’m not sure. They’re called guinea worms. People get infested by drinking water that contains little tiny water fleas. They’re actually copepods-barely visible-that have fed on the parasite during its larval stage. Copepods are little crustaceans related to crayfish. All they do is eat and reproduce. They’re worldwide. Ponds, ditches, even standing water in old tires. You need a microscope to see them, so you wouldn’t know they were in a cup of water.”

Graves looked at the body, then looked away. “Those things come from water fleas?”

“No. Inside the fleas, the guinea larvae develop teeth. Once they get inside a person’s stomach, they eat through the intestinal wall. When they’ve mated, ready to release larvae, the females move through the body’s soft tissues, and finally break through the skin looking for freshwater.”

Graves said, “My God.”

“Uh-huh, an unattractive life cycle. In Africa, I saw street people who were infected. The common treatment isn’t pretty. I’ll spare you.”

When the investigator pressed for details, however, I told her what I’d seen, finishing, “The worms can be three or four feet long, so it’s the only way to prevent them from breaking off beneath the skin. Which could cause infection, maybe death.”

“Ohhh, awful,” sorry now that she’d asked. She pointed. “But how do they know which areas of the body are soft enough…? Do you see the one that’s… that’s…?”

I looked, turned away. “I see. I don’t know how they navigate. It’s an interesting example of specialized adaptation.”

“Sickening’s a better word. These things aren’t found in the United States, are they? They can’t be. I’d know about something that nasty.”

“Guinea worms aren’t indigenous to North America. I’m almost as sure that they aren’t found in this hemisphere. They aren’t supposed to be here, anyway. These are exotics. Not native to Florida.”

I added, “Exotic plants and animals thrive here. It’s the heat, all the water. Or maybe these are just similar in appearance to guinea worms; not the same species. But I think they are.”

I stood, glanced around the room. One of the detectives had recovered. He was standing, his back to us. I wanted a pan of water-not to drink, but to see how the parasite reacted to water. I decided to find the kitchen myself. Rona Graves followed, relieved to be out of the room.

As we walked, she said, “Please tell me that we can’t be infected by contact with the body. God, I don’t think I could handle the thought of having-”

“No, don’t worry. You have to ingest contaminated water. I might be able to show you why in a second.”

“They’re from Africa? Do you know if Applebee had traveled to Africa? Maybe that’s where he was infected.”

“I’ll ask his sister, because you’re right: It’s important to nail down the source. If Applebee picked them up locally, if he wasn’t studying the things for research, this county’s got a serious problem. Maybe the entire state’s got a problem.”

“How serious?”

Instead of telling her, I took a chance and demonstrated; did it to convince myself of something that I already believed was true. Witness an emaciated street child using a Popsicle stick to spool a guinea worm and you’ll never forget what the parasite looks like, how it behaves, nor what you’ve later read about it.

In the kitchen, I’d filled a glass bowl with water. Now, back in the room, I placed the bowl on the gurney next to Applebee’s ankle. After several seconds, the parasite’s senses began vectoring, its bristled scolex twisting, searching. After a few more seconds, it leaned toward the bowl, arching like a caterpillar. Then it stretched until it could insert its head into the water.

Instantly, from its mouth, the parasite began to emit a milky current that bloomed slowly, slowly, murking the bowl.

“You’re seeing why it could be a serious problem. Males die after fertilization, so these are all gravid females. The milky substance is a stream of larvae. Each female releases tens of thousands.

“Imagine them dumping many millions of larvae into a lake or river. The copepods I mentioned feed on them, and the worm begins to develop. Then you or I come along, swallow or inhale a few drops of the water. Our bodies become part of the parasite’s life cycle.”

The woman made a shuddering noise. “Did Dr. Applebee know-do victims know-what they have inside them?”

“I’ll do more research when I get home, but I think it’s asymptomatic. Maybe a low-grade fever toward the end, but that’s all until the parasite begins to exit.”