Everything Has Teeth Read online

"Too bad."

  Maggie sighed. "You haven't had an interest in any kind of fetishes since we've been together, and this is the one you pick?"

  "I need you to believe me."

  "I think you're attaching way more importance to your fingernails than they deserve."

  "I'm going to get the clippers. Don't move."

  "No. I am not going to watch you clip your nails. I'll gag. If this is so important to you, show me what they look like when you're done, and we'll compare them in the morning."

  Ricky nodded. Yes, that was a much better idea than making her sit there and watch him. He wished he'd thought of that before he'd proposed the grosser plan.

  He went into the bathroom and clipped his nails. His toenails didn't seem to be affected by the growth spurt, but he cut those, too. Then he returned to the living room.

  "See them?" he asked, holding up the handful.

  "Seriously, Ricky, that's the kind of thing you need to not do. For real."

  "But you see them, right?"

  "Yes! I see that you have, indeed, clipped your fingernails. Do you want a pat on the head and a cookie?"

  "No. I mean, I do want a cookie, but not for this."

  "Throw them away, please."

  "All right. I'll throw them away, but I won't take out the garbage yet."

  Ricky threw away the clippings and then washed his hands with the good soap. Had he acted deranged? He hoped not. If Maggie had said something like, "Wow, you're right, that is pretty odd; maybe you should see a doctor," everything would've been fine. But he couldn't have her doubting his honor. He wouldn't make up something like this. He wasn't some loser, desperately seeking attention. He had something strange going on with his body, and if she expected him to put a ring on that finger—he knew that was never going to happen but she didn't--she needed to not call him a liar.

  Okay, to be fair, she hadn't called him a liar. He was overreacting.

  Anyway, tomorrow morning she'd have to believe him.

  * * *

  To Ricky's great surprise, there was a second round of sex after they went to bed. Nothing too exciting; just a few minutes of medium tempo missionary, without her encouraging him to go faster or deeper, but still, it was much better than the nothing that he expected.

  He woke up before the alarm. 3:13 AM. Crap. He had to go to the bathroom. If he got up he'd have trouble falling back asleep, yet he probably couldn't fall back asleep while he had to pee. Catch-22.

  He tried to hold his right hand up in front of his face, but couldn't move it.

  What the hell?

  It was too dark to see clearly, but his fingernails seemed to be...buried in the mattress? He tugged. Couldn't get them free. How deep in there were they?

  He tugged on his left hand and couldn't move that one, either. It had gone through a pillow, which was just a fluffy feather pillow, so there was no reason it should be holding him in place so firmly, except that—

  Was that blood on the pillow?

  Was that lots of blood on the pillow?

  Ricky tugged a few more times. Maggie's head wobbled with each tug but she didn't open her eyes or make any sound.

  "Maggie...?"

  He tugged some more. Her head continued to wobble.

  "Maggie!"

  Ricky tried to reach over to turn on the bedside lamp, but since he couldn't move either of his hands this attempt was unsuccessful. Until his eyes adjusted to the dark, he wasn't going to be able to confirm that his fingernails had gone through Maggie's head.

  He felt that he was remaining remarkably calm under the circumstances, although at least ninety percent of that calmness came from his belief that this was a dream. Just a strange dream. Think about your fingernails before you go to sleep and you'll dream about them growing through her head during the night—that's the way it works.

  It had to be a dream. Otherwise he'd be screaming and sobbing and stuff.

  He pulled on his right hand as hard as he could. Slowly, very slowly, his fingernails started to withdraw from the mattress. Three inches. Four. Five. Six freakin' inches? Seven? Eight? Had they gone all the way through the mattress?

  Ricky twisted his hand, trying to snap them off. The only one that came off was his pinky nail, which tore off at the source.

  The pain was significant.

  Though he didn't shriek, exactly, he definitely did not respond in a quiet, dignified manner. Maggie didn't move. She'd always been a light sleeper, so the fact that she didn't react to his cries of pain did not bode well for her head being in pristine condition.

  "Maggie, please, wake up," he said. "Don't be dead. Please don't be dead."

  He tugged again. Her head wobbled again in a very corpse-like manner.

  How had she slept through this? What kind of person would let fingernails grow through their head without waking up? How fast were these things growing?

  His pinky fingernail had already grown to the length of a normal fingernail, so the answer was, pretty goddamn fast.

  "Help!" he shouted. "Somebody help me! Call the police! I'm trapped!" He didn't think that providing complete information ("I'm trapped by my insanely fast-growing fingernails!") was a wise idea and settled for being vague. "I'm trapped!"

  He forced himself to take a deep breath. He'd be fine. Maggie wouldn't, probably, but he'd be okay. Somebody would find him, they'd cut his nails, and the hospital would give him some kind of medicine to stop their growth. Maybe they saw this kind of thing all the time. No doubt there were countless medical marvels about which Ricky had never known.

  He'd be fine. He'd be totally fine.

  Now his eyes had adjusted to the darkness well enough to clearly see that the nail of his middle finger had gone through the side of Maggie's pillow, then up through the top, and into her ear. He sat up and saw that it had emerged from the other side; not quite from her ear, but just below it.

  She was dead. The girl he hadn't wanted to marry but whose company he'd enjoyed a great deal was dead.

  If only she'd believed him. If only she'd said, "Holy shit! Nails aren't supposed to do that! Let's get you to the emergency room right away!"

  He called for help again.

  Had his habit of playing really loud horror movies and being rude when his neighbors knocked on the door and asked him to please turn down the volume come back to haunt him?

  He looked at his pinky finger. He could actually see the nail growing. It didn't hurt, but it was certainly a disturbing sight.

  He pulled again as hard as he could on the hand imbedded in the mattress. Now the nails weren't budging at all, and he wondered if they'd curled on the ends.

  Oh, why didn't he keep a pair of fingernail clippers next to the bed? Or a pair of scissors? Or shears? Or a knife? Or, hell, even a gun. If he had a six-shooter, he could blow off the remaining four fingernails and still have two bullets to spare.

  Ricky could wait for help, or he could twist.

  He decided to twist.

  He squeezed his eyes closed, and turned his hand. The pain was unbelievable, but he forced himself to push through it. They were just fingernails. They'd break.

  Swiveling his wrist as far as it would go didn't do the trick. The nails twisted but didn't snap.

  He bent his fingers, whimpering in agony. He'd managed to go his entire life without suffering any ghastly accidents or undergoing any horrific medical procedures, so he didn't necessarily have an accurate point of reference, but this had to be an above-average amount of pain for somebody to go through.

  The nail on his index finger snapped.

  The nail on his middle finger did not snap. Like the pinky, it tore off entirely, taking a patch of flesh with it. Two thin trails of blood ran down his finger. Ricky hadn't cried over Maggie's death a few moments ago, but he cried now.

  Two more. Only two more moments of excruciating pain and his hand would be free. He couldn't quit now. Now that he knew what to expect, the next two wouldn't be nearly as bad.

  The nail on
his ring finger tore mostly off, taking some skin and leaving behind a small piece of nail. See? It was hellish pain, but not as hellish as the middle finger had been.

  Only his thumb remained. He gave it a violent tug.

  Snap.

  The snap was his bone, not his thumbnail.

  Ricky let out a bellow that echoed throughout the room. Or maybe he was just hearing an echo because his sanity was slipping away. Either way, it was a very loud bellow.

  Four fingers free. One broken thumb still stuck. The process of tugging was probably going to hurt a lot more now.

  It did. In fact, it hurt so badly that he blacked out.

  * * *

  When he woke up, his nails had not grown back through the mattress, which would have been frustrating but also admittedly kind of amusing. Two of them had, however, grown right through one cheek and out the other, protruding out about six inches. The lower of the two fingernails had also gone through his tongue.

  Ricky hadn't choked to death on his own blood, so that was something, anyway.

  He sat up and leaned forward, draining some of the blood he hadn't choked on. The nail on his broken thumb was still stuck in the mattress, so he'd have to move his head instead of his hand. Very, very, very slowly, neurosurgeon slowly, he leaned to the side, sliding his fingernails out of his cheek and tongue. He tried to will his fingers to stop trembling, but they didn't really cooperate.

  Finally, the nails slid free. Ricky resumed his efforts to call for help, but his cries came out as a bloody gargle. Nobody would hear him.

  Okay, so, he was going to have to give the thumb another try. Force himself to stay conscious this time. Otherwise, he was dead.

  He took a deep breath, braced himself for the pain, and tugged.

  Ricky had prepared himself for the pain of a thousand red-hot pokers jamming into a thousand tight orifices, and so when the pain wasn't quite at that level, it was a relief. He let out a blood-spraying incoherent wail as he acknowledged that even a broken thumb wasn't supposed to bend like that, but the nail did tear off.

  One hand was free.

  He could, presumably, just pull Maggie's corpse off the bed and let it drag behind him as he went for a phone, but that seemed disrespectful. So he tugged on the other hand. All that did was pull Maggie's dead body closer to him. He rolled her onto her side, bent his knees, placed both feet against her back, and pulled.

  Her neck bent backwards until it snapped, which was probably more disrespectful than if he'd dragged her into the living room.

  He kept pulling and pulling, groaning with the effort, until finally, all at once, his middle fingernail popped free.

  Free!

  He spat out some blood and then got out of bed. He staggered into the living room, leaking all over his carpet. It took him a few moments to find where he'd left his phone, but he finally located it on the kitchen counter and quickly punched in 911.

  Thank God. Thank God. He'd be fine. They'd send over an ambulance, get his wounds stitched up, give him some medicine to stop this freakish growth, and everything would be perfectly okay. The worst of it was over. Thank God.

  Ricky held the phone up to his ear.

  That turned out to be a very bad idea.

  STUMPS

  I didn't acquire eternal life without knowing the possible consequences. Living forever isn't the same as being invulnerable, and I knew that I could be mangled, burned, dismembered, or worse, and stay that way for a very, very long time.

  It's all about risk assessment. How many people do you know who've actually received horrific burns or lost a limb? If you go into a nursing home, you'll see a lot of people in poor health, but most of them still have their arms and legs. Even if their eyes don't work very well, they're still safely in the sockets. The vast majority of the human race lives out their lifespan without any substantial mangling.

  I certainly wasn't planning to become some sort of superhero, righting wrongs and constantly putting myself in harm's way. Thus, I figured that yes, the "eternal hell on earth" possibility definitely existed, but my body would continue to heal like a normal forty-year-old, so as long as I was extremely careful, the risk would be worth it.

  Besides, who knew what kind of technological advancements there'd be even ten short years in the future? I could lose a limb and become an awesome-looking cyborg with superhuman strength!

  Honestly, the much more challenging part of the decision involved the spell itself. This wasn't some sort of goofy vampire thing where you got bit and turned into one of the undead. This was black magic.

  This required a sacrifice.

  Yes, a virgin sacrifice. Three of them.

  I know that it's a joke: "Haw, haw, good luck finding even one virgin, much less three, in the twenty-first century!" But it really is a legitimate source of concern. Because that particular piece of black magic, performed on a non-virgin, wouldn't just fizzle. It would backfire in a big bad way. The practitioner described the fallout to me in grisly detail, making it very clear that when she asked me to bring her three virgins, she damn well meant three virgins.

  There was absolutely no room for error.

  This meant collecting victims who were young.

  Real young.

  I don't for one second expect you to sympathize with me. If you think I'm a reprehensible, despicable monster, I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise.

  I will, in my own defense, address the question of "Did you really think that it was okay to kill three people so that you can live longer?" And I say, with total honestly, yes. Yes, I did believe that me having eternal life was worth the loss to others. How many thousands, millions of people could I benefit with my gift? I could change the world!

  I'm not saying that I didn't feel horrible. I'm just saying that the trade-off was worth it.

  And, yes, when the moment arrived, I did say, "I can't do this," dropped the knife, and ran out of the room to vomit. Then I sat on the floor and sobbed for a few minutes.

  But I came back.

  When it was done, I felt...well, like I wanted to die. Kind of ironic, huh? But I'd been warned that I'd feel that way. Your brain doesn't just bounce back from doing something so unspeakable. It didn't matter; I had a long time to recover.

  Or, I would have, if I hadn't been caught.

  I wasn't stupid about it. In addition to the hefty fee I'd paid the practitioner, I'd saved enough money to go into hiding for a decade, if necessary. I had a plane ticket to Ireland, and a bus ticket from the airport that would take me to a quaint little village. I could catch up on my reading, learn some foreign languages, and pursue the extreme intellectual growth that would make me such a valuable member of society.

  But I didn't make it to the airport.

  Didn't even make it out of the building. At least, not while I was conscious.

  I don't know where I screwed up. Hell, I don't even know which one of the three was their daughter. They weren't like James Bond villains who gave lengthy explanations while I tried to figure out a way to escape from their basement. They simply asked, "Where is Marie?" and used lit matches to encourage my willingness to respond to their question.

  They didn't like the answer.

  I tried to avoid giving the full reason for the death of their daughter, but I didn't hold out very long. Before I blurted out my motive, I insisted that their tactics made them as bad as me. Of course, I didn't believe that crap, and neither did they.

  I told them the whole story about how it was part of a black magic ritual, and how I now had eternal life. I didn't expect them to say, "Oh, well, in that case, our sacrifice is justified!" and they didn't seem to feel that way. They simply thought that I was criminally insane.

  And then they told me that they were going to call the police, and that if I was going to live forever, I could do it in a prison cell. This horrified me on a level that I can barely even describe...though, of course, they were bluffing. They had no intention of involving the authorities.


  They decided to let me prove that I was telling the truth.

  As I've said, immorality is not the same as invulnerability. Everything that happens to your body hurts just as much as it normally would. Your fingernails are every bit as sensitive as those of a non-immortal person.

  She babysat me while he went out shopping.

  I think he maxed out their credit card at the hardware store.

  Again, I'm the villain here. I know that. I'm not trying to suggest otherwise. That said, their inventiveness, patience, and willingness to immerse themselves in the grotesque was clear evidence of deviant minds.

  If they'd gone berserk and started stabbing me in the chest, I'd say that yes, they were grieving parents who were trying to disprove my story. But people who methodically saw off somebody's fingers, one at a time, cackling with laughter (crazed laughter, yes, but laughter nevertheless) had those impulses inside them long before they actually did anything about it.

  Toes followed fingers.

  One of the things that kept running through my mind was I don't want to die! I don't want to die! I had no way of knowing that the black magic had worked. The whole "triple virgin murder" element made it doubtful that the practitioner was a flat-out con man, but that didn't mean his spell had actually been successful.

  I bled and bled.

  Another thing about immortality: just because you don't die from blood loss doesn't mean you stay conscious. I finally passed out.

  When I woke up, I was still in their basement. There was a lot more blood on the floor. Probably not all of my blood, but most of it. They looked kind of weirded out, as you would expect when people realize that the guy who said he was immortal had bled way too much to survive without supernatural assistance.

  It would have been nice if they decided that somebody with the gift of eternal life should be set free.

  They did not decide this.

  Instead, they began to remove my appendages. They did not simply cut off my right arm. Nor did they even sever it at the joint. No, they treated my arm like it was a loaf of bread.

  It took a lot of time, a lot of effort, and three different saws. Like I said, they had to already have been disturbed individuals, right?