Orion Pest Control: The Joint Eater

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/adorabletapeworm on 2024-11-15 13:50:43+00:00.

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Previous case

Our first atypical call after Samhain was, regrettably, a human infestation. At the risk of sounding unprofessional, it was a nasty one. Not quite as high up on my personal list of Most Disgusting Cases as the worms or the centipede curse, but it's definitely up there.

(If you're not familiar with what Orion Pest Control's services are, it may help to start here.)

Before I get into that though, I want to make it known that there will be discourse of starvation as well as vomiting going forward. This case was not pretty, to put it mildly. I know that those can be difficult topics for some individuals, so I thought it best to give a warning ahead of time.

The client called us up after her doctor wasn't able to find anything useful. She'd dropped twenty pounds in two weeks, which is definitely cause for alarm.

One thing that can cause such symptoms is called Hunger Grass. It's a patch of grass that becomes cursed for a variety of reasons.

Some sources state that the Neighbors plant it, hoping an unsuspecting human will wander into it. Others say that it grows over the graves of those who were subjected to improper burials, or in areas afflicted with food shortages. It's because of these last two reasons that Hunger Grass was said to be rampant during the Irish Potato Famine.

No matter the cause, the end result is the same: anyone that comes into contact with it is doomed to be afflicted with hunger pains for the rest of their lives, no matter how much the victim eats. There is no known cure. The victims are cursed with eternal starvation until their bodies eventually succumb to atrophy.

One of the things that makes it so dangerous is that, to the uninformed, Hunger Grass looks just like any other thicket. There are no warning signs for it, which makes it far too easy to get the curse by accident. It is said that carrying a bread crust in one's pocket can protect you from the curse’s effects, but that doesn’t really help much if you don’t know that there is Hunger Grass nearby.

“I'm just… So hungry.” She complained weakly. “No matter how much I eat, it doesn't help.”

“When did this start?” I asked, already making a plan in the back of my head to question Deirdre on if she knew of any Hunger Grass in the area.

Speaking of, it was her first day. She and Victor had a lot of ground to cover, so if I was correct about the Grass, I’d have to wait until they returned.

However, the client said something that made me rethink my initial diagnosis. The last time she could remember being well was when she'd been in her rowboat, enjoying a serene day on the water.

That prompted me to question, “By chance, you didn't happen to fall asleep while on the water, did you?”

“Uh, yeah, I dozed off for a bit. Why?”

Oh no... Not Hunger Grass after all.

I politely requested the client to hold on for a second, then got Reyna's attention.

“You ever deal with a Joint Eater before?” I asked.

Her face fell, eyes widening as she silently reached for the phone. That was a ‘yes’ if I ever saw one.

She then told the client, “Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to meet us by the river. Are you able to get there on your own, or do you feel too sick?”

The client admitted that she was extremely weak, so we offered to pick her up before heading to the river. For one, starvation is no joke, especially if its root cause is parasitism; the last thing we wanted was for our poor client’s body to give out. That, and with what Reyna and I had to do to treat the infestation, she was going to need all the strength she could muster.

Before collecting the client, we stopped to get some supplies.

Joint Eaters get their name because of their parasitic nature as larvae. In order to complete their life cycle and reproduce, they require a host. Sometimes it’s animals, other times it’s humans. They aren’t picky.

They tend to take the form of newts in order to be small enough to enter a host’s mouth. They like to go after those that fall asleep by the freshwater they call home, so our client was, unfortunately, their ideal target. Once they make the host swallow them, they begin to consume every morsel that their host tries to eat, hence why they’re called Joint Eaters.

While they’re living it up inside the host’s GI tract, that’s when they’ll reach maturity. The longer the Joint Eater infestation goes on (provided the host survives long enough), the higher the likelihood of it producing young, which also feast off of the poor host in a similar manner.

In other words, we had to be quick. If the client was having trouble moving around, that wasn’t a good sign.

One of the things we had to get was cooked meat, so we settled for one of those unreasonably delicious grocery store rotisserie chickens. The other was a big container of salt. The reason for these two items will become clear in a moment.

The next step was to grab the client. The poor woman’s cheeks were hollow, her skin sallow and pale. She leaned heavily on me as I half led, half carried her to the company truck. She felt cold, her elbows bony in my hands.

The moment the client smelled the chicken, she stared hungrily at it. I felt terrible doing it, but in order for what Reyna was about to try to work, we had to withhold the food from her.

“Sorry.” I muttered, meaning it and wincing. “It’s part of the treatment plan.”

Our emaciated client just nodded, leaning her head against the window, her eyes quickly fluttering shut. Eventually, wheezy little snores began to escape her lips.

Reyna, who was the one driving, exchanged a brief glance with me that told me she was feeling just as remorseful as I was. But it had to be this way. Once we got the Joint Eater out of her, the client could have as many rotisserie chickens as she wanted.

The drive to the river seemed to take forever. With how fatigued our client was, she kept dozing off and on into fitful sleep throughout the journey. Once we parked, Reyna gently tapped on her to wake her up.

The client needed both of us to support her on our way to the riverbank, each of her thin arms around both of our shoulders. She’d said she lost twenty pounds, but with how frail she was, that leads me to believe that she must’ve been underestimating that number.

Reyna and I gently guided her to sit on the ground. Once we had her situated, Reyna began to delicately explain how we were going to get the Joint Eater out of her.

“We can either make it leave your body willingly, or we’ll have to make it too inhospitable for it to survive.” She informed the sick woman. “Neither way will be pleasant. We’ll try the first thing I mentioned first, since that’s the lesser of the two evils.”

The client let out a shaky breath, “Whatever you have to do, just… do it.”

“I’m going to have to hold you down.” I told her gently. “Is that alright?”

She nodded, groaning softly as she leaned to lay down on her back in the grass. Trying to be as gentle as possible, I kneeled over her, placing my hands on both of her shoulders. The client’s cheeks were wet, lip trembling.

“We’re going to get this thing out of you.” I promised her, trying to comfort her. “You’re going to have your life back in a few minutes. We just need you to hang in there, alright?”

The client sniffed, nodding again. She took a deep, trembling breath, then whispered, “I’m ready.”

Reyna and I exchanged glances, silently confirming with one another that it was time to get started.

I kept the client pinned on the ground, doing my best not to hurt her as Reyna removed the chicken from the plastic container that it came in. She held the mouth-watering entree a few feet above the client’s head. The client’s chapped lips parted, her eyes glued to the meat above her head.

I know how cruel this all sounds. Holding food above a starving woman’s head, just out of reach. In truth, I felt like the scum of the earth doing it. By the way Reyna’s brows were screwed together, her conscience was screaming at her, too.

Suddenly, the client’s body jerked beneath me. Her eyes went large, her mouth shutting, lips tightening as if she were fighting the urge to vomit. It was working. Thank God.

The client shuddered, whimpering. I pressed her shoulders into the ground, keeping her still. She began to struggle, trying in vain to knock me off of her, spittle gathering in the corner of her mouth.

A lump became visible in her throat, slowly creeping up towards the client's mouth. It took everything I had to keep from gagging at the sight.

“Let it out.” Reyna told her.

The client's jaw dropped as if to scream. From behind her tongue, two slimy hands emerged, the dark orange fingers webbed. One of the hands reached out to grasp the client's chin, pulling itself towards the chicken while the other hand swatted at the meat blindly. Tears began to stream freely from the client's eyes.

Reyna backed away, keeping the chicken out of the Joint Eater’s reach. It let out a grumble as it continued to pull itself from between the client's jaws. She whimpered again as its beady black eyes became visible next, its wide mouth and flat nose reminding me of a frog.

As Reyna kept creeping closer to the river, more and more of the Joint Eater became visible, its slick torso halfway out of the client's gaping mouth, her saliva dripping off of the parasite in thick strings.

Eventually, it...

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