The inclement weather was cold enough to make piss freeze right as it left someone’s dick. I praised God that heating in cars was a thing. Driving with a missing left arm was definitely no picnic either, but the wound was healed enough and I still had the other to steer. Sleet eroded away the windshield. Whenever I wiped some of the torrent of snow off, it was only battered with more. As I rushed down the streets of New York’s luxury district, my car suddenly sputtered to a stop.
I frowned. “I got this stupid thing fixed days ago! A stall just HAD to happen in weather like this!” Letting one of the sleeves dangle, I put on my coat and ambled out the car seats. The wind tried its best to sweep me off my feet and my breath froze instantly in the blizzard. I grumbled as I forced open the hood, which was immediately pushed open by the gale force winds. Nothing was out of ordinary about the engine; looked like it just needed a quick jumpstart in the ignition and I could be on my merry way on trying to save my friend’s ass. Besides, his manor was just a handful of streets away. Right as I am about to open the door, my boot crinkled up a flat object, damp with moisture, sticking out of the snow.
A business card.
I picked it up, assuming it was garbage left by some pompous bastard, until I caught the writing on it.
“Want to start from scratch? Want to gain superpowers and help out society? Learn Wormweaving! Blend in and go undercover! Get paid massive amounts of moo-lah serving as a-!” The rest of the wording was covered in grime. Scrapping it off with a fingernail didn’t work either. I turned over the back side and there were instructions on how to get to the area, involving countless twists and turns down back alleyways in New York.
This had to be some kind of illegal operation. There is no way in hell that all this could be true.
My mind flashed back to the time when my arm was ripped off by the hive of maggots from one of the assailants.
“Gain superpowers? Blend in?” I whispered. It was obvious my assailant had sinister intentions with Aiden. Maybe this could give me answers to figuring out more to this?
Through the parhelions in the streetlamps, I could see multiple Aiden doppelgängers, all of them locked on Aiden’s huge mansion: the crown jewel of the luxury district. They still were wearing the exact same clothing, completely ill prepared for the weather. If Aiden were ever attacked, the nurses would have informed me about the situation when I had woken up. They must be stalking him.
Why were all the fakes just sitting there? If they all had the same intentions, then why were they just waiting to strike? Unless if they were waiting for my friend to make one bad move and attack him then…
“Shit!” I said, snapping out of my daze, getting back in my car and flooring it. White cool sparks and asphalt fly from the wheels and I continue my journey.
-–
My friend unlocked the front door to his mansion, holding countless shopping bags filled with enough goods to fill Santa’s sack ten-fold. The inside of the marble interior was as opaque as murky water, caused by the cloud cover above. Streetlamp lights blink and form halos against the horrible snowstorm, making them resemble headlights of a train plowing through the fog.
“The storm is getting pretty bad already. How about I fix you two some hot cocoa?” Aiden said, rustling his son’s hair under his coat hoodie.
“Thanks Dad! Hey, how about you show us that movie based on your latest work?”
“I don’t know, kid. I don’t think you could handle it,” Aiden said, rubbing his son’s head teasingly again.
“Aw, come on! I’m a big kid! Surely it can’t be that scary! It’s PG-13!”
“You may be just eight years old, but it’s obvious that you already are developing the horror filled genes I was given! Let’s do it!”
The moment I pull into the driveway, I bolted to the front door, shoving a pistol and bullets in my coat. My glove was already damp with sweat. Aiden shut the door before I could reach him, completely oblivious to the danger he was in.
“AIDEN! AIDEN!” I barked, pounding at the door until I swore it would cave in. My teeth violently chattered from a mixture of the bone chilling wind and raw fear. I peered in through the window, watching Aiden run to the door. He swings it open, swearing under his breath and clenching his fist until he is taken aback by my unexpected appearance.
“Nate? What brings you here? The nurses told me you suffered a gruesome injury to your left arm and they had to remove it. But from the looks of it, you seem to have recovered fine. Glad to see that. Let me make you some hot chocolate!”
“Aiden. Listen to me very closely. You are in danger. Get your family to some safe area in the house, now!” I whisper.
Aiden only gave me a smirk. “Is this some kind of pra-“
“YOU AND YOUR FAMILY ARE IN DANGER! TAKE THEM TO A SHELTER NOW!” I shouted, sprinting into the living room and telling his wife and son to get to the basement. Just as I was about to lead them to a door that I assumed was the basement, Aiden stopped me.
“Nate, you know you can’t scare me or fool me! You must be joking! Can you please get out of my house?” He said, holding his hands up dismissively.
“Prank? If it was a prank, I would have told you so! There are intruders that have been stalking you for days and I know that they will strike soon! You see this stupid injury? That’s what one of those crooks did to me! Please! I don’t want you or your family to get killed.” I said, hyperventilating.
Aiden glanced at his wife and son and then looked back at me. After pausing for a moment, he nodded, not wanting to take any chances. “Get to the shelter. I will follow you back down once I know what is going on.” They followed his command.
“Do you have any weaponry?” I asked.
“Enough of this bullshit, man! Look, I’ve seen you constantly treating me like shit but still acting like my friend and I tolerated it. But pulling a stunt like this and you are crossing the line and about to fall off the cliff!”
“Do I have to repeat myself again? Take a good look at my left side. My arm was torn right from the muscle by those crooks using this, weird sorcery thing called Wormweaving.”
“Please explain. Now.” Aiden declared, putting his hands on his hips. “What do these ‘intruders’ look like?” He scoffed.
Outside from the chaos of the storm outside, all was quiet with the exception of unseen forces treading on the roof. Snow crunching could be heard if one ignored the settling of the house. Aiden’s eyes suddenly widen.
“You’re not kidding, are you?”
I rubbed my eyes in frustration. “For some reason, these intruders are trying to impersonate you. Appearance and everything. I saw them take your form when I woke up. Why they are doing it? I don’t know.”
Like a fireworks display of glass and cold, the intruders burst through the windows of the vast kitchen, locked right on Aiden. The closest one even had a long, slender maggot protrude and enter his skin back where its home was. Aiden darted to the kitchen, pulling out a double barrel shotgun from a compartment under the sink and stuffing his pockets with too many shotgun shells to count. I draw a pistol fully loaded with bullets. Judging from the fact that Aiden raised his gun in an instant, it was obvious the message finally got to his head.
In an instant, Aiden fired two rounds at the nearest guy, his legs exploding into ligaments and maggots. Within just a few seconds, his entire body is regenerated completely as the maggots converge back into a human form.
Then, to my surprise, one of the perpetrators stared at another, a look of malice in his eyes. “Fuck off, this guy is mine!” He snarled.
“Stay out of this! I’m taking his place!” The other shouted.
“Find another celebrity to take the form off! I can’t stand another minute of being in that gang!”
Gang? What gang were they talking about?
In an instant, the two of them are pushing and shoving each other while trying to lunge at Aiden. I fired my gun right at the heads of the two crooks before they could harm my friend. Brain matter and viscera splats across the hardwood floor, freezing and releasing steam and contrasting with the biting frost from outside. Their bodies remain completely still and the maggots eventually separate away from their corpses. I fired more bullets at the criminals. I wished I had my left arm at the moment. Aiming was a real struggle if there wasn’t anything else to help you stabilize your gun.
Then, just like that, twenty more intruders burst through more of the windows and seeped through small air vents before converging back into human form. Aiden’s look of cowardice before had melted away, leaving only behind a face of rage.
“What are you waiting for, Aiden? They are after you. Get to the basement!” I shout.
“No, not now…” Aiden said calmly but furiously, firing more rounds at the perpetrators as they all lunged, fighting each other and prying each other off, seeing who would go for the kill. Aiden’s shotgun clicked and he immediately headed to the basement. I follow him along as well, firing my gun at the intruders to buy my friend some time. I shut the door behind me, locking it and preventing any more of the crooks from getting in.
The door was battered against from the outside due to the perpetrators.
“Aiden, what is going on?” His wife said, holding my friend’s son close to her.
“Why are you two still here?! There are intruders outside!” Aiden roared, gritting his teeth. “Go to the wine cellar, now! You both will be safe there!”
His wife piped up. “Let me help you take out the intruders! I want my son to be safe as much as-“
“Get to the cellar, NOW!” Aiden shouted. A tear fell from his son’s eye. Aiden rushed down, holding his wife’s shoulders.
“I don’t want you to get hurt by those intruders out there,” Aiden embraces his wife and gave her a kiss before hugging his son. Before his son could bury his face in his father’s chest, Aiden pulled away in a hurry, motioning for them to head to the cellar. “I’m not letting anything happen to any of you. Now get going!”
Out of nowhere, the intruders began to break down the door. I held them off, reloading my gun when the bullets ran out. Without saying another word, his family obeys his instructions.
Two more of the intruders barge in, still squabbling over who is going to replace my friend. Aiden reloaded his shotgun, firing as all of them pull out more masses of wriggling fanged creatures and send them flying directly at my friend.
One of the intruders manages to get a hold of my friend’s gun, trying to pry it from his death grip. While it is distracted, I reload my gun and fire a round right into the assailant’s waist. It still keeps on trucking. Aiden managed to free the gun, putting it right at the monster’s chest and blowing his lower torso to smithereens.
Six more seep in from the cracks in the walls. The interior of the massive first layer of the basement was filled with the goons. Suddenly, they all begin retching at once. When they suddenly lose their footing, streaks and puddles of assorted maggots, leaches and worms pour out of their guts and any wounds present. In one continuous flood, they darted towards Aiden, trying to immobilize him, making hideous squeaking sounds as they tried to asphyxiate my friend.
I gasped, trying to scrape off the maggots while the assailants grew closer, going into a full sprint seconds later. Their arguments grew louder and louder. I pounded a fist at my friend’s spine to help him dislodge the maggots trying to climb down his throat.
Aiden snarled at the party of bandits, demanding that they leave his family alone. I fired every last bullet at the troop. More squirming tendrils erupted from the sides of their wrists, forming flails with keratinous spikes. Two of the guys rushed at Aiden, taking several good swings.
Sensing I am running low on ammo, I tried to pistol-whip the guy. He dodged my attack, smacking me right at the neck and sending me tumbling. The crook approached me, grabbing my throat in a death grip.
“Oh, you want to dance, punk?”
“Nate most certainly does NOT!” Aiden shouts, butting the guy with his stock and firing another round into his chest.
Aiden turned away from his kill while I continued to fire at the assailants. The maggot storm was only a few meters away. The basement led to a single staircase down below with the words “WINE CELLAR” written on it. Aiden’s gun clicked.
“Dammit! I’m out of shells! Run to the wine cellar!”
The old-fashioned stonework of the walls is eroded away as all of the assailants, maggots and all, charged in, trying to grab a hold of my friend. A bar flashes past us with an assortment of wine bottles.
Aiden’s face lights up. The moment an opening is available, he immediately starts throwing the glass projectiles all around. Vodka, wine, and spirits splash onto the ground, creating a pile of glass and booze on the tilework floor.
The maggots converged into a single tentacle, swinging and flailing around like a snake with a seizure. My friend and I both leapt across the granite countertop, dodging more of the maggot swarms and leach flails. One of the assailants came from behind, constricting the slithery bastards around his knuckles, creating hardened knuckles of keratin. Throwing several punches, Aiden tricked him into smashing the clusters of remaining, which crack open. I shield my face as the bottles exploded and the criminal cried out in pain. When the criminal wasn’t looking, Aiden smashes the side of an intact bottle, jabbing the broken end right into his attacker’s side.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a lighter.
One of the criminals put me in a head lock, trying to shove me into more of the bottles. I broke free, elbowing him in the ribs, and lighting the torch.
“AIDEN! Get to the wine cellar, now!” I shout.
When Aiden complied, forcing open the iron-clad vault, I threw the light right into the alcohol puddle. In just a few seconds, the entire bar is set ablaze. All of the assailants screamed in pain as the flames coiled around their bodies like pythons around their prey. Now having found an opportunity, I sprint right for the open vault, diving in and letting Aiden pull it shut and lock it.
He turned to look at his family, smiling at them before rushing to embrace them. For a moment, everything was perfect.
“Thank heavens you both are safe!” Aiden said, tears forming in his eyes.
Outside the vault door, the screaming continued. A voice piped up.
“Forget about this schmuck! He’s not worth it!”
One by one, all of the intruders began to flee in frantic clomps. When the coast was clear, Aiden opened up the vault door with a wet rag, jumping into the flames to obtain a fire extinguisher. The flames were snuffed by a coat of foam and leave dying hisses. My friend wiped the sweat off his brow and returned to hug his wife and son once again, closing his eyes.
“Fucking cowards out there.” A voice echoes from the shadows.
My friend reopened his eyes in a fright, sticking a hand out to signal their son to get behind him and his wife. I held my remaining arm up as two of the intruders slunk in from the vents, both of them bickering as they returned to their original forms.
“What do you want from me?! Get out!”
“Reinforcements, of course…” One of them said, slowly walking to Aiden’s family. Without hesitating, Aiden threw his stock at one of the criminals. The criminal quickly dodges the attack and uncoiled two leeches, throwing them and jabbing Aiden’s wife and son right in the forehead.
“ALICE! RYAN!” Aiden shouted in horror, catching them before they could fall to the ground, their eyes glazing over. Aiden gave the smirking assailant a death glare. I run over to keep Aiden’s family company while Aiden confronts the intruder.
“WHAT DID YOU DO TO THEM?!”
“Don’t worry, they’re not going to die.”
Aiden turns back to his family, checking for a pulse on his wife. He chuckled with relief seeing that she was still alive. Abruptly, his wife shoves him off, sending him tumbling right on the stone floor.
“Get away from me!” she shouted.
Aiden was taken aback. “Alice, it’s me. Aiden. Are you alr-“
“KEEP BACK!” She retreated towards one of the fakes, her son following suit and taking cover behind the mysterious man, who flashed a toothy grin and snickered.
“All they are going to do is obey my commands, and my commands alone, while they don’t remember a goddamn thing about you,” the man mocked, unfurling another flail of meat and slime.
Aiden clenched a fist, seeing nothing but red and promptly clutching the doppelgänger by the shirt. Before he could make another move, the flail wrapped around Aiden’s neck, constricting it. I pistol whipped the guy when an opening arose. He gave me a death glare, sending a swarm of maggots so numerous that they resembled water flowing through sluices. Their pursuit made me drop the Wormweaving card.
An idea began to sprout in Aiden’s head.
Aiden approached his wife, avoiding her swings, and gave her a kiss. Right as his lips touched her forehead, she leaned in to headbutt him. “Wait here. I promise I will help you remember everything.”
Just like that, Aiden left, requesting that I kept them safe. I give him a nod and my word, opened one of the wine barrels, rushed up the stairs to grab the lighter from before and waited for it. When the floor was nothing but a pool of amethystine liquid, shoving my friend’s family away from the burning cellar, and I light it all up. I guided them past the previous flame-ruined corridors, taking them to an alcove in the drywall left from the fight’s aftermath.
They kept resisting. Driving a car on a sheet of ice was less of a daunting task than keeping the both of them calm. I sprinted over to the vault door, jamming it with debris. There was some nearby rope and I managed to gag them so they wouldn’t make any noise. At that moment, I just needed to keep still, hide them both and pray that they would shut their traps. And then, I saw a notecard with a ship’s wheel on it.
One of the assailants used the last of the fire extinguisher to put out the cellar fire.
“They’re mine!” The other barked, getting into another brawl with the other. One of the brainwashed family members reeled back as if about to let out a scream. I quickly silenced them, preventing the two combatants from noticing me.
About two hours passed. Throughout the entire fight, worms kept pouring out of their hands in streams as they each threw storms of punches, flailing leech tendrils and trying to rip each other apart.
“You know what? Enough of this! If I can’t have this shitbag’s form, family, and have my life back in check, then neither can you!” In an instant, one of the adversaries marched right up to the now shattered granite countertop, sending out more of the slender parasites out to scout for the family members.
Eventually, one of the worms slithered through the crevice, right where I am hiding in. As the writhing bastard pursued forward, the mother and son panicked, trying to get free of my grip. I tried to kick the leach away, but it continued to pursue forward. I got the upper hand and managed to smash it flat. My relief morphed into horror as hundreds more worms took its place, brandishing fangs as sharp as pins.
“Come on. Don’t blow our cover! You all need to relax!” I thought. Out of a panic the son climbs out of the hiding spot, slipping on the spilt wine and collapsing right in front of the two fighting criminals. The mother chased after her son. Adrenaline pumping through my veins, I dove in front of the kid, trying to shield him from the onslaught of attacks. Before I could wrap my remaining arm around him for protection, one of the criminals flings me to the side, sticks out two fanged leeches as long as snakes, and stabbed the mother and son in the chest. They both stumbled before crumpling to the ground.
“No, no, no, no, no!” I rush over to my friend’s wife and kid, trying to get them to wake up. I grabbed the rope I had used to gag them, holding it in my mouth for extra grip and tying it around their waists to try and stop the bleeding. With my remaining hand, I alternate performing CPR on the both of them. Wine stains their clothing and mixes with the blood bubbling from their mouths. Both of their eyes were closed.
A vision of my old family photo flashes by my eyes. “Don’t die on me! Don’t you dare die on Aiden!” I put an ear to both of their chests. Neither one of them had a heartbeat.
I grunt, still keeping up their CPR. The remaining criminals run from the basement, and try to scale the stairs. I tried to detect a pulse from their necks. Nothing came up.
“Wake up, you two!” I shouted.
Not long after, footsteps marched down from the upper floor. From the outside, the two criminals released wet screams as their bodies were seemingly ripped apart. Torrents of maggots scatter down the stairs as a blond-haired man swept the blood off from his coat. A coal black leech slithered back into his sleeve.
My intestines constrict. It’s Aiden. His eyes lock right on the corpses of his two family members. Instantly, he sprints over, screaming in horror.
“ALICE! RYAN!”
He put his hands by their necks and lets out a small sob, resting his head in his now deceased son’s chest. When he finally collects his thoughts, he turns to face me. I take a step back from the radiating rage of the new Wormweaver.
“YOU!” he shouted, racing up to me. Aiden grabbed me by the shirt, teeth gritting, tears streaming. “You said you would protect them you dirty bastard!”
“I fought as hard as I could! I couldn’t hold them back! I’m sorry!” I replied, fighting to find words that would best back me up. They seemed to fall on deaf ears for a moment.
“Bullshit! They’re both dead because of your weakness!” He charges up another punch.
“This wasn’t my fault! I tried to warn you of the danger your family was in!” I replied.
“Why didn’t you protect them?!”
“Listen to me!” I shouted. The conflict had finally risen to a head. “I know how you feel. Please, listen. We did everything we could.”
Aiden let go of me, looking at his hands. His eyes widened and his breaths were shaky. The air grew heavy as he just stared at his maggot infested hands. His tears fell harder and he crumpled to the ground on his knees like a wet origami crane. He held his head in his hands, sobbing.
“What kind of father am I, letting them die like that?”
I rest my hand around him.
“It’s neither one of our faults. We mustn’t beat ourselves up about it,” I said.
“If I would have gotten everything faster, the situation could have been sorted, they could have survived.”
“Listen, once again, it’s neither one of our faults.”
Aiden looked up at me.
“Come. Let’s go to my car. I want to tell you something.” I put the ship’s wheel insignia card and the Wormweaving business card in my coat.
-–
We both sat on the shabby leather seats and I cranked up the heat. I drove away from the now ruined mansion and took him to an area away from the fray. Our evidence-ridden washed jackets were now in the trunk. We would be blamed for all this and we needed to stay as far away as possible. Aiden was still crying and holding his head in his hands. We eventually parked near one of those shitty fast-food restaurants in order to blend in with the crowd.
I let out a sigh and gripped the wheel. “Aiden. You aren’t the only person to lose your family.”
My friend looks back at me and wipes a tear from his eye.
“Several years ago, while I was at work one day, I found out that my wife and two kids had perished in a car accident. A drunk driver plowed right through their car, totaling it. Left me broken and threw me into a depression that lasted months. Even today, I haven’t recovered from it completely. I mean, just look at how I have been treating you. I’ve been an absolute jackass, haven’t I?”
“Not really. I never noticed.”
“You may have been acting like a pompous idiot for days, but I gave everything I had to warn you because I never wanted you to go through this. We might have a…well…rocky relationship, but I couldn’t just let you suffer the way I did.”
Suddenly, Aiden stopped crying, instead staring at me with realization. “Nate. Why didn’t you tell me all this? If I would have known my playful taunting was doing that much damage to you, I would have stopped long ago. That was just an act. I liked imagining you as a future competitor and us fighting against who could be the best writer.”
I lightly smiled at him. As quickly as it had formed, my heart sunk, and a frown took its place.
“Oh, no. What are we both going to do? We’re both in a stupid restaurant parking lot hoping that the cops don’t pin the murder of your family against us.”
“And even if we get off scot-free, the odds of us rebuilding a family are nonexistent! We won’t even be able to get a single job! The employers would all think we are nothing but whack-jobs!” I raised my voice.
“OUR LIVES ARE OVER!” Aiden yelled back.
In the heat of the moment, the Wormweaving card and the ship wheel card fell out of my coat pocket. I picked up both, reading the first part of the first card.
“Want to start from scratch? Want to gain superpowers and help out society?” We both share a look, taking in the sight of the ship’s wheel card.
“On second thought…Maybe they aren’t…” I said.
Aiden put a hand on his chin, cracking an intrigued smile and wiping the last of his tears away. “Now that I think of it, I might have a chance to seek revenge.”
“Yeah…What if I could get my arm back using this too…Afterall, I lost my arm from one of those guys. And considering the fact that we have evidence of where those crooks came from…” I straightened myself out, furrowing my brow. “We might have a chance to start over. I’m tired of us constantly treating each other like shit. It’s about time we found a purpose together.”
I held out my remaining hand together. “What do you say we take down those bastards and gain some glory?”
Aiden’s grin widened and he accepts my handshake, his face now dry of tears.