Wormfood Island

ABOUT WORMFOOD ISLAND You thought zombies could just eat you‌ Wormfood Island is the story of a family on the verge of collapse. When they win a trip to a hedonism resort out of the country, Kevin Miller hopes this is the chance they need to save their marriage. But instead, they find themselves quickly facing a quest for survival against an infestation of parasitic worms that cause the infected to gain monstrous sexual appetites‌which quickly turns to an appetite for living flesh.

CHAPTER I LIFE IS A SUITE ABOVE HELL Until that moment when breath jumped back into his lungs, causing a loud, harsh gasp in the otherwise silent apartment, Kevin Miller wondered if perhaps he might be dead. A part of him wished that was the case and regretted taking another breath, and then another. He hated what he had become, the kind of guy who lies on his sofa in the middle of the day, wishing he was dead. He didn’t move from the old, leather sofa; he didn’t open his eyes. He thought about how often his wife, Theresa, complained about how he spent all his time on that sofa, telling him it smelled like an old cat to her. Kevin had to admire the way she insulted things so efficiently, reminding him how much she hated him, the sofa, and their old cat, too, in case he’d forgotten.

When he did open his eyes, when he surrendered his idea of wishing his life away, he looked up at a peeling, white ceiling in an agonizingly bright day. The August heat in their Long Beach living room was stifling, and Kevin knew summer had a long way to go. His resistance to the heat had broken down long ago, however, and he was reduced to lying in nothing but his pajama bottoms. This helped cool him a little but left his exposed back clinging to the sofa like scotch tape.

He peeled off it with a long, difficult tug, sat up in the silence, and wondered in the desperate boredom of his life what he could do. The heat pressed on his skin and a trickle of sweat began working its way down to the small of his back, bringing him to squirm about, trying to divert it from its inevitable course.

As he moved about, Kevin’s eyes turned to the single, framed portrait on the table to his left. The living room was confined by the sofa and love seat pointing to a TV that had once worked, and the small table stood in the corner where the two leather seats met. Kevin looked at the frame. The subjects in the picture were immediately recognizable. Kevin

and Theresa Miller from years back. Newly married. Back then, they had been The Golden Couple. They had thought it. All of their friends had thought it. Had they really been that happy once? Where had that picture been taken, anyway? Acapulco? Ensenada? Had it been on some vacation far away where the surf licked the sand with sensual ease, where the margaritas flowed and the sun never burned? Or had it all been a lie, implanted into Kevin’s head on one alcoholic binge, only to have him wake up to a wife and a kid who both hated him?

What would he say to her when she came home from work? How would he explain that he had turned down the only job offer he’d received in five months? How would he tell her that his one reason for not accepting it had been because they wouldn’t allow him to take next week off? He needed next week. He couldn’t start anything until after next week. Kevin had planned the entire week out, had laid all of his hopes on it like some Old Testament altar. Sure, he was sacrificing his livelihood for their marriage, but wasn’t the marriage the most important thing, after all? Kevin thought so; he couldn’t imagine anyone thinking otherwise.

“What does it profit a man to gain the world but lose…” The words sounded even more foolish out loud. Kevin didn’t know what he would say.

This idea he had, this last chance for saving his marriage, had all started with a trip he had won from a local radio station. One week of romance. It was what they needed. It didn’t matter if she believed it; her looks of disdain and dismissal didn’t matter. He believed it; he was putting everything he had on the line for it. And if a prospective employer wasn’t going to let him take the week off, he simply wouldn’t be able to take the job. It was really that simple.

To Kevin, at least.

That’s why he was considering lying to her. And he hated lying to her. Not only was it wrong—married people shouldn’t lie to each other—he wasn’t that good at it. Wasn’t a lie exactly what had put him here, in this marriage and in this apartment? What had he said to her?

That her eyes were like heaven on a Sunday?

It wasn’t as though his list of options didn’t have everything else marked off. As a graphic artist in L.A., Kevin found that he was about as novel and necessary as an actor or a screenwriter. He had been looking for work. He’d been looking hard. Theresa knew that. She also knew that Kevin lacked a degree, any kind of certification, or the humility that came with knowing this. Instead of following a policy of not lying, it was clear to Kevin that he should have been lying much more. He should never have told her why he’d lost any of the jobs he’d let slip through his fingers. If lies were necessary, that’s what he would give her. He’d say they’d insulted him with too little pay and not enough hours and an attitude that was just…if only they’d let him take the week off! What was he supposed to do? Lose his wife and kid? He needed that week.

He sighed and closed his eyes again, shutting out the light. He put his body down on the sofa once again and cupped his hand over his face.

The familiar smell of sweat reminded him of an old glove. He had to think of a way out. Had to…

The front door banged like a shot, shaking Kevin out of his torpor and an uncomfortable snap hit his side where the sofa and his skin parted ways. He knew instinctively that he should have changed before Theresa came home. It would be stupid to let her see him lying in his pajama bottoms. “You can, at least, look like you’re pulling your weight,” she’d tell him. Sitting halfway up, though, he saw it was just their son who had come in. Kevin put aside any thought of changing his clothes. He couldn’t justify putting on a new change of clothes only to sweat in them on the sofa, maybe look for work on their old, buggy computer or walk out to check the mail.

Instead, Kevin turned his attention on his son, Nathan. The boy’s attitude and arrogance had long been adolescent, and he was only thirteen. Now, as Nathan threw his backpack on the floor and ran to the laundry room that served as his bedroom, it was clear to Kevin that the son he knew was long gone, replaced by a teenager. Moving into the run-down apartment from the condo had been rough on all of them; they hadn’t been able to make their mortgage and now Theresa’s income was barely enough to cover their rent and other bills. Kevin felt he ought to

remind Nathan they should be happy they had this much, but he realized that would be the wrong way to go. He knew that for a teenage boy living in a laundry room, a kind of nook that was large enough for two side-by-side washers and dryers or one twin-sized mattress and a teenager, the downgraded living quarters were probably hardest on Nathan. The boy had to swallow all of this shit that was all his parent’s making. Fuck that, Kevin thought. It’s my fault.

Kevin didn’t bother getting up. “Did you feed Mrs. Warner?” he asked his son.

Nathan poked his head out of the small enclosure that served as his room. With a small video game device in his hand, its display shining into the shadows of the “room,” Nathan gave a simple, “No.” Kevin got up and walked over to his son. He’d never seen that game machine before. What was it? A Sony? Nintendo? Kevin didn’t keep up with those things, but he certainly knew neither he nor Theresa had the money to throw away on something like that. He leaned into the doorway. “If you don’t feed Mrs. Warner, then how can we ask Marilyn to feed Bam Bam when we’re gone?” Bam Bam, their old cat, certainly couldn’t make it a week in this heat alone, and Marilyn, their downstairs neighbor, had agreed to watch him if the favor was reciprocated.

“Well,” Nathan answered with a shrug, “you didn’t remind me.”

“I shouldn’t have to remind you. You should be old enough to know what you need to do.” Kevin raised his voice a bit. He didn’t like being angry at his son, but someone needed to teach the boy responsibility. Even if he couldn’t do it through example, as Theresa was so often pointing out, he could do it this way. God only knew Theresa wasn’t going to get after him.

Nathan cocked his head to the side. “Yeah, but I have school all day. I’m busy. You’re home. All day. So, if you’re going to ask me to take care of Marilyn’s cat, the least you can do is remind me since you have so much free time.” With that, Nathan sank back down where the lights were out, and all Kevin could see was the flicker of the game.

Where’d you get the game, Kevin wanted to ask. Where’d you get it? But he didn’t ask because he was afraid of what the answer might be.

“Mom gave it to me.” What would he do if that was Nathan’s answer?

He couldn’t do anything.

Beyond the laundry area where Nathan lay on his mattress, playing the game, their kitchen sat small and bare. It was a white tile reminder of everything they didn’t have. They’d once owned all the appliances most people take for granted—the coffee machine, the blender, the toaster, even the juicer—but as those things had aged and as they had inevitably broken, there simply wasn’t enough money to replace them. Just as with the sofa Kevin slept on, bursting with guts of tough, gray fiber from years of use, Theresa had made the case that they were better off without them than having to live with the embarrassment of them. Kevin was sure she would soon make the same case about him and, expert lawyer that she was, he knew she would compel him to agree.

To the side of Nathan’s nook, a hallway opened to the bedroom where Theresa slept. Kevin lived on the sofa; he hadn’t slept with Theresa in months.

He didn’t need anyone to tell him that it wasn’t his wife’s fault or even his son’s fault. Kevin knew the blame was squarely on his own narrow shoulders. Theresa, a junior attorney at a small firm in Cerritos, had been seduced by Kevin, even tricked a little. With that wild mane of hair he once had and that boyish charm that had once served him so well, Kevin won her over. He could draw her naked before he’d even seen her naked. They were younger then and making out was something she liked to do. Kevin had said he drew her like blind people, through touch. He had no idea whatever became of those pictures, but he knew where his talent got him. And that wild mane of hair that he used to always grow like some kind of king lion had only served to cover what had been a lack of ambition. When his hair had started falling out by the time he’d hit his mid-twenties, there really wasn’t a whole lot left. The pleasures of his boyish charm had turned into a beer belly. Now, at thirty-five, his hairline had relocated to a more middle-aged line of longitude. Rather than grow it long, he kept it short now—he had to in the event of a job interview—and counted himself lucky to have any hair at all. There was no way Theresa couldn’t have seen this coming, and when she asked him to marry her, she would have been luckier if he ran

away. He nearly did. It was only the baby, born out of wedlock, that woke him up. When Theresa finally got Kevin to settle down, it was to the disappointment of watching him drift from one job to another.

Kevin tried to paint it in a different light. If you asked him, he’d say that was the nature of the business. He worked mostly as a contract laborer, trying to network, trying to sell his own stuff. It was true that Kevin had an impressive portfolio; it was also true that he hadn’t done a whole lot with it. If you asked him why, he would tell you that he had wanted to. He would tell you that he had tried.

Kevin returned to the sofa again and watched his stomach paunch out as he sat. It wouldn’t hurt so much to be ineffectual…if only he could do something about it. From the corner of his right eye, he saw Nathan lean his long, lanky body into view. What must this be like for him, Kevin wondered, watching his dad fall apart? Nathan probably wants to know why things are the way they are, but what could I possibly tell him? That I’m a failure? That I’m weak? At thirteen, he couldn’t possibly understand. He’d simply end up hating me. It was this depression-fueled logic that was a side effect that buried Kevin deeper and deeper, while also insisting that Nathan probably admired his mother for being everything his father wasn’t.

Kevin knew this was all in his head, of course. Both he and his wife had kept their son completely in the dark. Their one, consolidated front was that they wouldn’t burden their son. When the divorce came through, they’d tell him. Then, they’d let him choose where he would live. Theresa already had a place lined up in Fountain Valley with a girlfriend. Kevin could stay in their run-down apartment until the lease ran out, for all she cared. Then, he could live on the street.

But the divorce wasn’t going to go through. Not yet. Kevin had struck one last deal with his wife for one last chance. That’s all he asked for. That one last chance was now just days away. They would rise above the awful reality of their marriage and spirit away to a reminder of the romance they had once enjoyed. One last attempt to save the marriage—one foolish attempt—one week. After that, if it didn’t work, she could have her divorce.

“Are you gonna make dinner?” Nathan asked.

The afternoon sun blazed onto their balcony and through their blinds. Even their cat, Bam Bam, was smart enough not to brave the heat out there. Up on the third floor of their building, no breeze ascended to cool the concrete surface. It was too hot to cook, and Kevin reasoned it must be too early. Theresa wouldn’t be home from work for a few more hours.

“I’ll start it at 6:30,” Kevin told his son, not moving from his position.

“What are we having?”

“Macaroni and cheese.”

“Aw, crap,” his son muttered. Then, Kevin watched as the boy stood there, as if waiting for a response. Once upon a time, he would have been able to come up with a response. Now, Kevin didn’t move.

He couldn’t think of a single way to meet the boy’s challenge.

Kevin was still thinking about the divorce and what would happen to him afterward. His wife would be gone. His son, too. He’d have nothing. He wouldn’t even be able to make the rent on this shithole apartment, with carpeting so old and dirty you couldn’t clean it if you tried. Old threads lay down there on the empty floor like dried up worms on concrete after morning rain on a hot day. What would he do? He knew a three-story fall wouldn’t do it. Could he stand in front of a train?

Could he drown? Could he actually hold himself under water and empty his lungs and sink down—he’d have to do this at the beach. Maybe he’d put rocks in his pockets.

The door banged open and closed again. Kevin looked around, but nobody was there. He realized he’d been slipping in an out of his depression like an opiate junkie slips in and out of his high. Long nights of tossing and turning on the lumpy sofa, dreading an inevitable future made by an unavoidable past, had put him past caring. Was that where he was headed? To a place where he didn’t care? He put his head down into his awaiting hands and looked at the carpet.

“Where’s Nathan?” The ringing of his wife’s familiar voice off bare walls brought Kevin’s head up, stunned by the reproach. Theresa stood before him, her long black hair hanging straight and silky, angular, the way Kevin had once found so irresistible. Fresh from the office, she

stood in her dark gray business suit, mannish and unflattering with its straight lines and a little big on her. She didn’t look attractive. She looked angry.

“He’s, um, playing video games. Did you—?”

“No.” She reprimanded him like an owner talking to a bad dog.

Kevin often felt like that when his wife spoke to him. “He’s not playing video games.”

“He’s in his bedroom,” Kevin persisted. That’s what they’d started calling the laundry area, “his bedroom.” “He’s playing with a video game machine someone had—” “No. He’s not. Don’t you think I’ve looked there?”

So, she’d already walked in. Kevin turned in his seat and could see that she had even put down her work bag and briefcase in their usual place. Kevin was sure she had seen that he hadn’t started dinner like he was supposed to. She must have walked right back to him, standing over him like she was his parent, too.

“He was in there a minute ago,” Kevin tried to say.

“He’s not, Kevin. Okay? He’s not. Why don’t you even know where your son is? You’re home all day. You don’t have a job. I ask you to do just a few things: keep the house clean, get dinner ready, watch our son, and you can’t even do that. What the hell is wrong with you?”

Kevin opened his mouth to reply, but how could he tell her when he didn’t even know himself. How could he tell the woman he had married, the woman he was supposed to love, the woman Kevin had tried so hard to love even when it was like trying to love a block of cement that—on top of being depressed because he couldn’t find a job, on top of feeling miserable because of that, on top of being a horrible role model to his son—what was most wrong was that he had a wife who only made things worse, because she simply refused to see any good in him? He couldn’t. He just looked up at her with a face that displayed nothing but utter misery and knew she would misinterpret it, as she always did, as sheer indifference.

“There are times I wish you were an addict or a drunk. Then, there’d be something we could fix,” Kevin remembered her telling him.

That had been when Kevin knew she had given up. The man she had

loved because of his capacity to dream and create magical art and love and make love had turned into nothing more than a human cipher. He was nothing. He could see her thinking this. He could see it reflecting off her eyes.

She sat before him on the coffee table, right in front of the sofa.

Like so much in their lives, what had once been glossy and dynamic, black with the kind of finish you could see your reflection in, was now dull and worn. It looked old, probably long before its time, just begging to be thrown out. Kevin watched as Theresa tried to look at him, but the closest she came with those cold, indifferent eyes was the top of his head. All those pleas she had made that he take a job, any job, had been answered with failure and rejection. He knew she hadn’t deserved that.

All she had wanted was a man who could earn a steady income that would allow them to live the life they had once planned. It no longer mattered so much what those plans were just so long as they were better.

Kevin had never been interested in “better.” He’d wanted to achieve something with his art or with himself, and the reality of the world had been worse to him than cold; it had been indifferent.

“I’m trying very hard, Kevin. I’m the only one bringing in any money. It all goes to Nathan—to keeping a roof over his head and keeping him fed, to keeping him from looking like he lives in shit, which is the truth! I’m trying to hold him back from the truth. Don’t you see how hard this is?” But her appeal fell on deaf ears. Kevin was looking at the closed front door. “I have tried. I really have. You don’t understand how hard this is,” she told him Kevin could see how close to tears she was, and he seethed inside.

Hard? For her? What about for him? Did she have any idea what it was like to have nothing work out for you? Did she have any idea how it felt to be ineffectual? To not mean a thing to the one person you love? To know that you’ve been reduced to your most essential weakness: irrelevancy?

He tried to dismiss all of this, to shut it aside with a reminder of his one hope, which he spoke out loud to Theresa. “Everything’s going to be better after Friday.”

Her mouth opened and her head sprang back. Kevin’s hope had hit Theresa like a slap in the face.

Friday. It was only a day away. If they could just make it that far, things would get better. How could she not see that? On Saturday morning, they would catch their flight to Cabo San Lucas, which was only the beginning their romantic getaway: A one week, all-expensespaid trip to “Lovers’ Island.” Theresa had found every impediment to stop them, every reason not to go, but Kevin had arranged for Nathan to be allowed to travel with them when Theresa had insisted she wouldn’t leave her son alone. Kevin had seen to it that every last penny was covered by the radio station that had given them the trip when Theresa had ranted about the expense. Kevin had pleaded when Theresa had told him that the very thought of going to such a place with him made her skin crawl. He had fought so hard to make this happen…

“You honestly think that’s going to help? You honestly think that will do it? One week?” she asked.

“We can try,” Kevin told her. His voice was so weak; he was afraid her harsh insistence would crush it like a bug.

“One week is not going to make any difference, Kevin. We’re too far past that. If you think that’s going to make some difference in our lives, if you think I’m not going to talk to MacNeil as soon as I get back, call him from the mother-fucking plane, then you’re not just stupid, you’re delusional.” MacNeil was one of the lawyers she worked with, and Kevin was certain she wasn’t lying. He was also certain that there was no way she could know for sure that it wouldn’t make a difference.

He had enough hope for both of them.

He didn’t turn away from her. He looked up into those hatred-filled eyes and pleaded, “You promised Nathan that you would go.”

Now, her voice was cold enough to freeze away any memory of love she may have once had for him. “I’ll go for Nathan. Not for you.

And if you think I’m going to pretend for his sake… If you think I’m going to put on a show…you can forget it. I am so goddamned through with you.” Each word was an attack, and Kevin took each one without flinching, until he realized that she had caught on and anger flared once

again behind those eyes. She changed the subject away from him, as if turning her life away from him. “Now. Where is my son?”

Kevin stood with a response that surprised both of them. “I don’t know!” Kevin realized that, standing there, he stood taller than Theresa.

“He’s a teenager. He can’t go outside? Huh? He’s a fucking teenager!”

He shouted so loud, his voice scraped his throat. He could almost see the wind from his voice move her unforgiving hair.

And he liked it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Author and playwright, Ken La Salle’s passion is intense humor, meaningful drama, and finding answers to the questions that define our lives. Ken La Salle grew up in Santa Ana, California and has remained in the surrounding area his entire life. He was raised with strong, blue collar roots, which have given his writing a progressive and environmentalist view. His plays have been seen in theaters across the country and you can find a growing number of books available online.

Find out more about Ken on his website at www.kenlasalle.com.