by Ray Wallace

Benjamin's Parasite
by Jeff Strand
Delirium Books

Benjamin Wilson—husband, father, high school teacher—has his life turned upside down when one of his students goes berserk at home one evening and tries to murder his mother with a meat cleaver. The kid’s rampage is ended when he is shot to death by a neighbor. At the funeral, while gazing down into the casket, Benjamin notices something strange: the corpse’s lower lip is twitching. Leaning down for a closer look, he is hit in the face by a puff of air. Chalking the whole scenario up to his imagination, Benjamin leaves the funeral and tries to put the whole sad and sorry affair behind him.

But what he doesn’t realize is that this is only the beginning of a string of terrible events.

First there is the hunger, an intense craving for chocolate that he seems unable to satisfy. Then there are the strong sexual urges. And then the gambling urges that result in him quickly losing several thousand dollars at a local casino. What is going on here? Why the sudden and bizarre changes in his personality? Why the severe mood swings? When Benjamin becomes terribly sick at school one day and wakes up in the back of an ambulance, he soon discovers exactly what it is that’s going on:

Benjamin is host to a parasite. A very large and very nasty parasite. One that is controlling him for its own purposes. One that apparently has very little regard for Benjamin’s overall health and well-being. And one that will apparently do anything—and I mean anything—to ensure its own survival.

Wheeled in for surgery at a local hospital, doctors are about to attempt a removal of the parasite before it can damage Benjamin any further. The proceedings are interrupted, however, by a beautiful woman with a gun who forces Benjamin out of the operating room. She says that she is saving his life, that an attempt to try and remove the parasite by any normal medical procedure would surely kill him. She says that she is going to take him to someone who can safely remove the creature from inside of him. Benjamin isn’t sure that he believes her, but she has a gun and has made it abundantly clear that she isn’t afraid to use it. It would seem that Benjamin has little choice in the matter but to go along for the ride. And hope that the damned parasite can at some point be taken out of him without killing him.

And what a ride it is. It doesn’t take long for Benjamin to become aware of the fact that numerous parties seem more than moderately interested in the parasite. Like the pair of armed thugs relentlessly tailing him and his abductor-slash-protector. Fortunately, the thugs aren’t the brightest of guys and end up serving as more of a source of humor than violence. That damned parasite, though . . . The things it puts poor Benjamin through . . . A certain scene in particular involving a gas station bathroom sink will have you grinding your teeth in sympathetic agony.