Ad Nauseam - By C. W. LaSart Page 0,52

kept jabbering, sometimes laughing and other times sounding angry and harsh. His pulse raced as he fought to quell his rising panic.

What the fuck is going on with me?

Unbidden memories of his mother raced through his head. His mother worrying over a random fever, wringing her hands so hard her knuckles cracked. Her harassing phone calls whenever he went to a friend’s house, certain the other parents could never take care of him as she could. Then the time he found her in the shower, curled into a fetal position and shrieking. The paramedics took her away in restraints as she wailed for her son. She ended up killing herself with one bullet to the roof of her mouth after leaving a hastily scrawled note of apology to her only child.

“No.” Mark said to the empty room, then again with more force. “No!”

He was not going crazy. He had worked too hard to get where he was in life to let it be ruined by some inherited insanity. He would ignore it. He would will the voice away. He could do this.

Mark went into the kitchen and pulled out a rocks glass, filling it with ice. A bottle of bourbon sat on the counter, untouched since he’d started taking medicine for the Loa loa worm. He poured the amber fluid into the glass, his nervousness causing him to spill a bit on the counter. Not bothering to wipe it up, he started back to the living room, then returned for the rest of the bottle.

The bourbon burned down his throat, but he liked the feeling. When the glass was empty, he made to fill it again but changed his mind, swigging directly from the bottle. He felt the warmth of a pleasant buzz as the voice seemed to quiet down a bit, its interjection coming less and less.

Mark kept drinking.

Hours later, just before he passed out on the couch, Mark heard the voice speak one more time. He couldn’t help but laugh as the phantom in his head slurred in Swahili.

***

The MRI hummed and clicked around him, but Mark lay on the table unfazed, drifting in and out of consciousness from the sedatives the nurse had given him. He’d learned years ago, after a failed MRI for a torn rotator cuff, that he was claustrophobic and needed sedation to remain still for the forty-five minute procedure.

Drifting into sleep, Mark found himself in the jungles of the Congo once again, his guide speaking softly in accented English. The man’s pleasant face swam in and out of focus, but he could hear him warning of the dangers of the jungle.

“The gorillas aren’t the only things to fear in the jungle, Sir. It’s a haunted place, full of many bad spirits. You be careful one doesn’t hop inside you.”

A mango fly bit his leg and Mark watched it drink his blood, knowing he should slap it away, but unable to move.

“Stop.” He giggled drunkenly. “You’ll give me the Loa loa.”

Something crashed to his right, unseen in the deep darkness of the inner jungle and he was afraid. The gorillas. He had to be careful not to anger them. They could be lethal. The foliage parted and something huge and pale reared up before Mark. Not a gorilla, but a Loa loa worm, freakishly large and bearing down on him with an open mouth full of razor sharp teeth.

Mark awoke with a cry.

“It’s all right, Mr. Hanks. The testing is done.”

He was laying on the table, his arms held down by his sides with heavy blankets and his head wedged into place by foam cushions on each side. A nurse removed the folded washcloth from his eyes, and he blinked at the sudden brightness of the overhead fluorescents.

“Oh my God.” Mark said to the nurse, his right eye opened wide in alarm, his left still half-lidded from sedation.

“What is it, Mr. Hanks? Are you going to be ill?” The nurse looked concerned, placing a gentle hand on his brow.

“I know. I know what it is!” Mark tried to sit up, but a wave of dizziness overcame him. He needed to throw up, barely making it into the wastebasket the nurse held before his face. When he was finished, he wiped his mouth with a towel, his shoulders slumped.

“Are you okay?” The nurse asked.

“I don’t know. But I know what it is now. I need to talk to Alex.” Mark felt cold sweat trickle down his sides, tickling across his ribcage. He tried to stand,