I knocked on the door. No response. After 30 seconds I knocked again.
The door opened a crack. “Y-yes?” The voice was hoarse, like someone who hadn’t spoken aloud in hours. Or days.
“Kent Pelz?” I held up my business card. “My name is Tom Jurgen. I’m a private detective. I’m not here to bother you, but your parents are concerned about you. They haven’t heard from you in a week, and they hired me to check on you, make sure you’re okay.”
Pelz’s parents lived in Utah. His father was disabled and couldn’t travel. Kent had moved recently, they said, and they didn’t have his current address. He wasn’t answering his phone or responding to email. So they’d picked my name out of a list of Chicago P.I.s to look for him.
The door opened wider. Pelz was in his late 30s, short and pudgy, wearing sweats and a T-shirt dotted with perspiration and ketchup stains. He needed a shave, and his hair looked like he hadn’t showered in a few days.
“Uh, yeah.” He seemed confused. “Sorry. I, uh, haven’t been feeling well. Not COVID,” he said quickly, motioning me forward. “Come on in.”
I stepped into his apartment. Pelz lived in a small one bedroom on the north side, south of Rogers Park. Finding him hadn’t been too difficult, even though he’d quit his job as a supermarket assistant manager and forgotten to leave a forwarding address with his previous landlord. Fortunately a former co-worker at the supermarket knew what neighborhood he’d moved into, and then a few phone calls—well, a few dozen—led to his current building manager. An easy job that wouldn’t make me a lot of money, but at least I wasn’t ruining anyone’s marriage.
Pelz closed the door. The apartment was a mess. Fast-food bags and pizza boxes lay scattered across the floor, along with half-empty bottles of soda and cans of beer. The TV was on, muted. I saw an unmade bed through one door, and dirty dishes stacked in the sink in the kitchen.
“Are you all right?” The apartment looked like Peltz was either in deep depression or hiding out from the mob.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I should call them, I know. I will.” He shook his head, his eyes darting around the room as if someone was watching. “I’m just—sick, like I said. Not COVID.”
“Good.” Whatever was wrong with him wasn’t my problem. “I don’t mean to bother you. I’ll tell your parents you’re alive and okay. They were worried.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry. Hey, wait.” He scurried to a corner of the living room. “Let me show you something.”
I stayed near the door, wary. Pelz seemed jumpy. If he was on drugs or paranoid, or just afraid of someone—
He pulled a blanket up off the floor and reached into a deep plastic bowl. “Just take a look at this. Do you have any idea what this is?”
He came toward me holding something in his hands. I took a step backward. He leaned forward and opened his hands.
It looked like a giant centipede, six or seven inches long, with ridges running down its back, long antennae rising from its head, and small claws jutting from stumpy feet on its bottom. What the hell? I took another step toward the door.
“Just look! Just take a look!” Pelz leaned forward as I reached behind me for the doorknob.
Just as I grabbed the doorknob, the thing leaped from his hands straight at me.
I jumped back, waving my arms, but the thing landed on my shoulder and wrapped its body around my neck, the antennae probing my skin. I yelped, clawing at it, but Pelz shot a fist into my belly and I doubled over, gasping.
Something jabbed my skin like the sting of a wasp, digging in. I slapped at it, but Pelz grabbed my hands, and then a wave of dizziness made my legs collapse. I felt myself hit the floor, terror rushing through me. What the hell? What the—
My eyes opened. Pelz was standing over me.
“You okay?” He cocked his head.
“Fine,” I heard my voice say. “Everything is fine.”
He held out a hand to help me up. My body felt stiff as I sat up from the floor.
I rolled my head from side to side. I could feel the thing on my back, between my shoulders. Claws embedded in my skin like needles. Despite the pinpricks of pain, I felt a warm sensation throughout my body, firm and comforting.
I stretched my arm out, spreading my fingers. Making sure I could use this body easily. Muscles responded slowly. Blood pumped through my veins. My chest rose and fell. I blinked. My vision felt narrow, like looking through a tunnel, but my eyes could see clearly. Clearly enough, anyway.
I looked around the apartment. The news played silently on the TV. Dirty gray clouds hung in the sky outside the window.
I felt my face, curious about its shape. The nose felt bigger than it should have. The ears stuck out too much. The stubble on my cheeks made my fingers tingle.
I looked at Pelz. A little shorter than me, and chunkier, but the same basic shape. His face had more hair on it, and the hair on his head was longer and tangled.
“Now what?” I asked.
“How many people do you know?”
I closed my eyes, looking through my memory. “I don’t have a lot of friends. I live with my girlfriend. She’s in school. She knows a lot of people there.”
“Good.” He turned and led me to the plastic box in the corner, pulling the blanket away. He flipped some latches and opened the top.
Inside I saw another one of the centipede-like creatures, like the one digging into my back now. It sat in a shallow pool of water, with a clump of green stuff that looked like moldy cabbage stuffed against one side. Its antennae twitched, rising and falling, but it lay dormant, asleep or hibernating. Waiting.
“It’s the only one I have left.” Pelz knelt next to the box. “I had 10, and I used them on delivery people. I’ll get more soon. I didn’t expect you.”
“I was—hired by your family. They were worried.” He knew that. Why was I telling him again? Somewhere deep inside I knew none of this made sense. And all of it was wrong.
He reached down for the creature. “Take this and give it to your girlfriend. When I get more, she can take them to her school and give them to her friends.”
I nodded. Pelz held the creature out to me.
It was wet in my hands, heavier than I expected, but it didn’t fight me. Instead it curled up into a ball, its antennae pulled back over its head. I put it carefully into the pocket of my jacket.
“Do it fast.” Pelz walked to the door. “No more than an—an hour? One hour.”
I nodded. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. “We need numbers.”
“Right.” He searched the sofa and found his own phone, and we exchanged contact data.
I opened the door. I thought I should say something. See you? Take care? Good meeting you? But I kept my mouth silent. We’d shared all the information we needed to. Everything else was irrelevant.
I left, thinking about how I’d do this to Rachel.
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