Why Malinger?
A short horror story for a fun January. TW: medical, murder, needles, drugs, pregnancy
The first poor bastard who gets it is an old guy, seventies at least, shuffling toward the bus as he exits the library. He works there, I think, but all I know is he matches the picture so he’s gotta go. The closer I get to him, the stronger it is—like his insides are slowly rotting. Death has a scent, even without using your nose. The squirmy feeling I get around old people settles in my gut, the one that’s not sure whether to be jealous of their time or terrified that I won’t croak soon enough. How do you even know which is better?
I approach with some meaningless question about routes, and the old man raises his rheumy eyes, lower lids sagging so hard the water lines are baggy red rings. He mumbles something I don’t catch and I say thanks with a quick hand on his shoulder. The hair-thin needle between my fingers delivers the contents of a pill-sized capsule, and he never even knows. He’s off on the purple line, a walking dead man as if he wasn’t already, and I’m off to my next canceling. He’ll keel over at home later before he knows anything’s amiss–it’s the best you can hope for if you’re desperate enough for Insurance.
Like I am, for instance. The factory accident gave me no choice but to sign an Insurance policy, but it comes with some ugly terms. Sure, they pay your medical bills–extra if you’re willing to cancel other policies for them, and you get a chance at extra years if your treatments work. But once Insurance decides you’re a net negative for business…your policy is kaput. Like the old man’s, for instance. It’s what you sign up for when you get Insurance; official notice of a terminated agreement via syringe. Someone will end up doing the same for me one day.
I stub out a blunt while I wait for the next job. The toke is packed with enough painkillers to snuff a rhino, but it still barely touches my pain. When a 10-ton tractor rolls over you, you’re gonna feel it.
The girl will come out of the bar for a cigarette in a minute, I figure. When she smells the weed and sidles up, I let her have a drag. She’s hardly anything, just a scrawny teenager. It’s 3pm on a Tuesday but she’s living her best life, I guess. I don’t see anything wrong with her–Insurance won’t cancel a kid, at least not officially anyway, but if she’s already tapped out at eighteen it must be something really bad. Cancer, mental shit, something. Years of treatments, expensive. Did her folks sign for her? Does she know she’s on the hook?
Fuck, it doesn’t matter. I hope she’s suffering so I don’t have to feel so awful.
What’s your name, hun? I ask, just to double-check.
Sam, she says, smoke leaking from her toothy grin. I have the right one then. Just wonderful.
She bounces away with her lungs full of tar and her blood full of poison. I flick the tiny needle into the gutter. Talk about a roofie. Why bother spiking a drink—just go right for the bloodstream. She’s getting plastered tonight, as plastered as you can get.
I check my watch to see if anything else came through or if I can go home to Vanessa and slam a frozen pizza in the oven, forget this awful chore. If I do enough of these, maybe I can eke out another few years with her.
The radioactive-green letters on the watch display confuse me, and I blink.
Huh. No…my eyes are not deceiving me. Surely that’s a mistake. It doesn’t make sense, the name. I check the picture and it’s definitely correct, just…wrong.
I’m still puzzling when the watch beeps and I jump. It’s Vanessa calling. “Hi, babe. Um…”
Fuck. Something’s off.
Vanessa stutters, “Well—uh, how’s your day?”
“Can’t complain,” I lie warily. My usual nonsense, but now I’m waiting to see if I actually can.
She hesitates, and I don’t like the vibes. I agree to be home in ten and she hangs up, shifty energy hovering like the old man’s cloud of doom. I try to piece together what’s happening, because it’s never happened before. It’s not supposed to happen.
Vanessa kisses me when I come in the door and–fuck, I almost back away, afraid. Something has shifted in the fabric of things.
She catches my face, stops. “What’s wrong?’
I grimace and show Vanessa the green letters on my watch. She stares in confusion, the anomaly not registering. “But…I don’t understand,” she says. “How…?”
I shrug. “Maybe you can tell me.”
Her face falls, and—
Oh no. I suddenly get it. It’s the only worst-case scenario that fits. There’s nothing wrong with her, never has been. She’s healthy as an elephant.
Except.
You can’t always see what you’re dealing with, at least not right away.
I have to chuckle when I figure it out. It’s so stupid it’s funny. I signed the dotted line, but apparently she did too. She’s about to have a pretty hefty bill in the near future. Squeezing out another human is about as expensive as it gets.
The little detail with the watch never occurred to me or I would have taken care of it. Would have saved us an awkward evening, at least. “My watch broke a month ago and you gave me yours, remember?” I say. “I forgot to change the account over.”
“So that means…Insurance is sending my list—” She sits down on the edge of the sofa, bewildered.
“I guess I’ve been getting your cancelation jobs by mistake.”
“—to you. But why would your name—”
“Why do you have a list at all? I’m used to being the main liability around here, Ness. It’s a point of pride.”
“No,” she says, shaking her head meaning yes. “I don’t understand–this has to be against policy. They’re not supposed to make relatives—”
“We never got married,” I remind her. “We’re not technically related. They wouldn’t know we’re together.”
Her mouth hangs open a moment, indignant, then snaps shut, regrets and implications clicking in like Tetris. Her eyes go shiny with dismay, the kind of expression the old man should have had, or the girl, but they won’t get the chance.
It’s nobody’s fault; a marriage wasn’t ideal. You can’t trust the government to get involved in your personal life. It’s just a random coincidence that she got my name.
She rubs the crinkle from her forehead, somehow still adorable even though she may as well be a lethal scorpion in my shoe. “Isn’t there something we can do?”
I don’t want to suggest it, but I have to at least bring it up. It would be the only way out of this mess, because I’ll never catch up on mine let alone help with hers. The needle jobs I’ve been doing are just drawing out the inevitable until black and red lines criss-cross on some finance goon’s spreadsheet somewhere. Once you’re on a list, there’s precious little recourse.
“We could always…” I begin, but her hand flies to her abdomen defensively, another layer of horror flattening her expression.
I shut up.
“I’m keeping it,” she says firmly. Shiny shock in her eyes hardening to steel.
I nod. Expected as much. Can’t hate her for it. I did this, really. How many accidents can possibly happen in a row? A lot, it turns out.
“I didn’t want you to find out this way,” she says. “I was going to tell you.”
“I get it,” I say, even though my name on a kill list is a pretty unfortunate way to be informed. My corpse is gonna be a dad. Oh well. Maybe my kid will be luckier than me. Maybe they’ll be a crypto genius and pay off their birthing debt. Something has to end this asinine cycle.
“It’s so sloppy of them,” Vanessa snaps, flicking a hot tear from her cheek, her cute righteousness stiffening her posture. “You’d think maybe a little dignity, for god’s sake.”
It’s kinda sweet; her attempt at levity. What else can you do but laugh? Still, we both stare at the wall until the oven timer shrieks.
Vanessa rises from her spot on the sofa. “Time’s up,” she says. “I’ll get it.” She shoots me an apology with her eyes for her choice of phrasing. Or maybe for something else.
Shit.
Well…why malinger when you can go right for the bloodstream, right?
I could be forgiven a little resentment, though. Couldn’t I? Not for Ness, but the rest of it. Bones smashed to bits, but whose blood really signed this deal with the devil?
Decrepit as he was, the old man at the library probably imagined he’d be hopeless for a little longer too. Makes no sense, but people are funny that way. I guess if misery isn’t a basic human right…well. I don’t know what is.
Makes me think that this story could have happened just before your apocalypse!