THE PIMPLE ON VERIETTA’S FACE had doubled in size since the previous evening. About the size of a quarter it bulged, swollen, an ugly, angry shade of red. But far worse was when she leaned in close to the mirror under the harsh light and saw her flesh wriggling. An alien creature lived inside that gross humongous pimple—she was certain of it. She could feel it with every squirm and every turn, clawing away inside the flesh of her cheek. Verietta’s fingers itched to pop that zit and watch the creamy, pale green pus squelch all over the mirror. But her stomach churned at the very thought, because she didn’t know exactly what form of alien creature squirmed and wriggled inside her body. Was it a spider? A cockroach? A weird parasite as seen on TV. Or worse yet, a monster bug yet unidentified by scientists ready to rip her face off in a feeding frenzy?

What if it clawed its way out from a bloody, gouged-out hole in her cheek and she became a fat, slobbering, flesh-eating monster with horrid pincers?

Squeezing her eyes shut, Verietta pinched her fingers around the fat zit. The alien creature beneath struggled even more, as if aware it was about to perish under her skin or soon be freed from its fleshy prison.

She squeezed.

A giant POP! sent Verietta careening backward. When she opened her eyes hundreds of tiny translucent worms cascaded out of the gaping wound. A few stragglers emerged from the bloody hole and gnawed on the jagged crimson edges of her cheek. Verietta’s face erupted in a painful, fiery sting and she opened her mouth to scream. But the tiny worms wriggled their way into her yawning orifice and latched onto her tongue, yanking it out of her mouth with a wet, slurping RIIIP! Blood geysers sprayed from her mouth and splattered the shower, walls, and towels.

The worms, having grown to about an inch long and as thick as a pinky finger, crept down her throat. Under the pressure, her neck bulged and twisted. Verietta’s final living thought, upon glimpsing her reflection in the mirror, was that she looked like a contortionist performing for a gleeful audience. She collapsed, dead.

The worms barreled down her trachea, eating their way into her digestive tract, leaving behind a neck of shredded, scarlet holes, like Swiss cheese. Another wave of worms clawed their way up through her nasal cavity. Molting out of their skin into larger, stronger creatures, they sprouted ten sharp clawed legs on either side of their bodies. Thus commenced the munching of hundreds of mandibles, like feet stomping on eggshells. They multiplied as they feasted.

In the next room, Verietta’s naked, sweaty parents—in the throes of passion and oblivious to the army of worms that had consumed their daughter—gyrated on the mattress. Now the size of forearms, the invaders vaporized the bathroom door and surged down the hallway. Verietta’s father, who lay on top of her mother, had just enough time to look up before the worms burst through the bedroom door and buried themselves in his asshole.

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