It happened on the third night of our cruise, near the shores of Cat Island. My wife was pretty exhausted, so I volunteered to let our son Marty go for a walk on the beach to try and run out the energy he had.
About half an hour into our expedition, I heard him scream so loud I thought he had broken a bone. He had gotten a little ahead of me on the path, so I didn't get a clear look as to what happened; but when I got closer to him and saw the swelling on his ankle I immediately realized what had happened. Something had bit him.
My first thought was it was a snake and I called up the medical department on the ship, then grabbed Marty up and rushed to get him treatment.
I told the porter to find my wife once we made it to the doctor's quarters and had the young physician examine Marty immediately.
I watched helplessly as my boy buckled over in pain and screamed as the doctor did his best to examine the bruising.
"Looks like a spider bite," was the first thing out of the doctor's mouth after trying a few simple tests to confirm the skin was tender. "We'll give him the usual round of anti-venom we have here and hopefully we have the stuff for whatever hit him," the man added.
Jane arrived a few minutes later and started soothing Marty as much as possible as he was given five different injections.
After it was all said and done the medical staff on the ship advised that we watch him for about 24 hours to make sure that the swelling went down. It looked like the shots had done the trick so we did our best to try and make our vacation get back on track.
Of course that wasn’t 100% possible because Jane wanted to watch him like a mother hen and admittedly I felt like a fudging idiot for even letting something like this happen.
Still, it did seem like we were out of the woods and he didn’t have any adverse effects from the bite itself.
Or so I thought.
Soon we were back home and Marty was going back to the last few weeks of school. We had actually forgotten about the incident entirely when he came home one day and complained that his feet were really swelling. Jane was at work so I asked if I could see them and when he managed to squeeze his shoe off, I found myself at a loss for words.
Near to the part where the original swelling had taken place now it seemed like my son was experiencing massive skin lesions by his ankles and toes. I rubbed my hand against his leg gingerly and asked him where it hurt, noting the places where he was complaining felt hard like bone.
Then I noticed he was scratching at his back, and I asked to take a look there too. I wasn’t prepared for that unsightly horror.
It looked like a protruding bone was pushing its way out of his skin and covering his skin the way a scale would on a lizard. It sent a chill down my spine and I quickly snapped a picture of it and forwarded it to Jane.
We arranged to take him to the pediatric clinic that same day.
After several x-rays, Marty’s doctors admitted they were baffled. “It seems as though your son is developing abnormal skeletal structure outside of his body. Portions of his skin are hardening,” the nurse said fearfully.
Marty was in constant pain. So the doctors gave him some steroids, Advil and told us to monitor his progress for the next 24 hours as they had no clue what was happening or how to stop it.
That night was so agonizing. Jane and I took shifts sleeping in his bed and listening to our son writhe in pain. We debated about going to the ER, which was a good half hour away and eventually when his fever rose to 102 we agreed to do so.
It was nearly 2am in the morning when we rushed him inside, the nurses immediately offering us a room as Marty’s pain grew louder. The protrusions on his legs and back were now spreading out. Worse yet it was striking his chest and neck and he was having a hard time breathing.
I softly cried as I watched him begging to just go to sleep, grabbing at my hand as tightly as possible.
A few skilled techs came in with a saw and asked permission from his mom and I to cut off one of the protruding bones. They wanted to test it and determine what the source of the infection might be.
It took several of them to hold him down, and Jane and I watched helplessly as our little boy screamed bloody murder. I felt like the worst parent in the world as they took away the bone fragment and I climbed onto the gurney and stroked his long blonde hair.
That was when I noticed that the hardening had stretched over the back of his head. It wouldn’t be long before the process suffocated him.
“Please do something!!” Jane yelled frantically. They gave him more sedatives. But nothing seemed to work.
An hour later Marty stopped breathing. But his heart was still beating. We watched in silent agony as the hardening bone was encasing him in this skeletal cocoon and took away what little was left of our little boy.
Eventually, the doctors returned with the results of the test; but it didn’t identify with any known creatures.
“I’m sorry... there is nothing else we can do,” the main ER physicians admitted.
Jane and I requested to take him home. It probably looked beyond bizarre for us to haul this large stone cocoon into the back of our car. But we weren’t about to abandon our precious son.
Honestly I didn’t know what was going to happen next. We knew he was still alive in there, somewhere. Barely breathing and being forced to transform into something... otherworldly.
We found the answer four days later when a new sound came from his room.
I stumbled through the dark and stared into the dim light to see something emerging from the bone. Long spindly legs like crabs came first. Followed by an elongated neck and a thousand sparkling green eyes. Strange ragged blonde hair on its misshapen spine and a massive abdomen like a spider’s thorax could be seen as it climbed to the ceiling.
Jane screamed in terror. The creature stumbled back in fear. I realized that deep in that monster, our son Marty still lived. Jane couldn’t see it. She stumbled to find a firing arm and we wrestled as our monstrous child watched.
Eventually I gained the upper hand. A single shot fired and I ended my wife.
That was three weeks back. I made arrangements to turn the basement into a den for Marty and told the local authorities Jane left me and that my son died.
I don’t think they are ready for the truth yet. The fact that my son has evolved into something more than merely human. And that he is still growing to become almost a god.
I see it though. I know he is still my Marty.
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