He turned and thrashed off across the pool in a clumsy breast-stroke, turned
over, and thrashed back. By then we were all getting undressed. Vern was in next,
then me.
Hitting the water was fantastic–clean and cool. I swam across to Chris, loving
the silky feel of having nothing on but water. I stood up and we grinned into each
other’s faces.
‘Boss!’ We said it at exactly the same instant.
‘Fuckin’ jerkoff,’ he said, splashed water in my face, and swam off the other
way.
We goofed off in the water for almost half an hour before we realized that the
pond was full of bloodsuckers. We dived, swam under water, ducked each other. We
never knew a thing. Then Vern swam into the shallower part, went under, and stood
on his hands.
When his legs broke water in a shaky but triumphant V, I saw that they were
covered with blackish-grey lumps, just like the one I had seen on Chris’s shoulder.
They were slugs–big ones.
Chris’s mouth dropped open, and I felt all the blood in my body go as cold as
dry ice.
Teddy screamed, his face going Dale. Then all three of us were thrashing for
the bank, going just as fast as we could. I know more about freshwater slugs now than
I did then, but the fact that they are mostly harmless has done nothing to allay the
almost insane horror of them I’ve had ever since that day in the beaver-pool. They
carry a local anaesthetic and an anticoagulant in their alien saliva, which means that the host never feels a thing when they attach themselves. If you don’t happen to see
them they’ll go on feeding until their swelled, loathsome bodies fall off you, sated, or until they actually burst.
We pulled ourselves up on the bank and Teddy went into a hysterical
paroxysm as he looked down at himself. He was screaming as he picked the leeches
off his naked body.
Vern broke the water and looked at us, puzzled. ‘What the hell’s wrong with hi
-‘
‘Leeches!’ Teddy screamed, pulling two of them off his rrembling thighs and throwing them just as far as he could. Dirty motherfuckin’ bloodsuckers!’ His voice
broke shrilly on the last word.
‘OhGodOhGodOhGod!’ Vern cried. He paddled across the pool and stumbled
out.
I was still cold; the heat of the day had been suspended. I kept telling myself
to catch hold. Not to get screaming. Not to be a pussy. I picked half a dozen off my
arms and several more off my chest.
Chris turned his back to me. ‘Gordie? Are there any more? Take ’em off if
there are, please, Gordie!’ There were more, five or six, running down his back like
grotesque black buttons. I pulled their soft, boneless bodies off him.
I brushed even more off my legs, then got Chris to do my back.
I was starting to relax a little… and that was when I looked down at myself and
saw the granddaddy of them all clinging to my testicles, its body swelled to four times its normal size. Its blackish-grey skin had gone a bruised purplish-red. That was when I began to lose control. Not outside, at least not in any big way, but inside, where it counts. I brushed its slick, glutinous body with the back of my hand. It held on. I tried to do it again and couldn’t bring myself to actually touch it I turned to Chris, tried to speak, couldn’t I pointed instead. His cheeks, already ashy, went whiter still. ‘I can’t get it off,’ I said through numb lips. ‘You… can you…’
But he backed away, shaking his head, his mouth twisted ‘I can’t, Gordie,’ he
said, unable to take his eyes away. ‘I’m sorry but I can’t No. Oh. No.’ He turned away, bowed with one hand pressed to his midsection like the butler in a musical comedy,
and was sick in a stand of juniper bushes.
You got to hold onto yourself, I thought, looking at the leech that hung off me
like a crazy beard. Its body was still visibly swelling. You got to hold onto yourself and get him. Be tough. It’s the last one. The. Last. One.