Hope you're hungry. It's time for seconds. Nightmare Soup 2 contains longer, scarier stories with the same type of horrific illustrations you loved from the original.
"It really hurts, Doc. I've had cavities before, but this one is something else." Gary applied steady pressure to the left side of his mouth with his hand. "Even talking hurts."
Dr. Stevenson pulled Gary's medical and dental history from an overstuffed cream folder and flipped through the information. His gray eyebrows were steady and straight, the wrinkled corners of his mouth showing zero signs of emotion. He'd been doing this for such a long time that this was just another run-of-the-mill patient... or so he thought.
"Well, let's make sure there isn't an abscess or something in there. You're probably right, though, just a nasty cavity. Lie back and let's take a look."
Gary sat back as the seat automatically reclined. He was a younger guy, early 20s, but he looked a bit older. His mouth was already full of silver and gold fillings because as much as he tried, he just couldn't put down the soda and junk food.
Dr. Stevenson snapped on his white latex gloves and turned on that annoyingly bright light that hovers just above the patient's face. Soon, the dental assistants and their rolling chairs wheeled over to Gary's side, ready to start the exam.
Gary hated this part. They would soon be prodding around his mouth, poking, scraping, and digging with their little metal tools. They would drill his teeth with that gross, crunchy toothpaste, then use that little suction mechanism to slurp up the spit coming out of his mouth. And eventually, he would get lectured about how he didn't floss enough or how he should stop eating junk food.
But first, they had to address this horrific pain. It seemed to originate in one of the back-left molars, and whenever Gary moved his mouth, it sent a wave of pain radiating through his jaw and upper neck, like a pulsating electric shock.
"Okay, Gary, let's see what's going on. Say 'Ah.'" Dr. Stevenson leaned in with his little magnifying tool. Immediately, he saw a gaping hole inside Gary's second to last molar. It looked like the tooth had decayed far into the gum line and went deep down to the root.
"Yep, there she is. That's a big-time cavity... looks like it's starting to form an abscess as well. That probably explains the radiating pain and swelling; to be honest, we might have to pull the tooth."
"Seriously?"
"It's a possibility. Let's get you over to the x-ray machine, and that will give us a better answer."
Gary got up and trudged over to the x-ray room, like he had several times before. It was the same old song and dance: Put the heavy plastic bib on, bite down on those plastic things, and let the X-ray machine do its work.
After about 15 minutes, Dr. Stevenson walked back in with the X-rays. The stoic, emotionless expression on his face had just a hint of curiosity. You could tell because his eyebrows were ever so slightly turned up.
"Okay, Gary, hop back into the exam chair for me."
"What did the x-ray show?"
"Well... I'm not exactly sure. I need to check inside the cavity, so I'm going to numb the area before I start digging around in there."
"Wonderful..." Gary rolled his eyes sarcastically.
Again, the dental assistants wheeled over, and Gary reclined back and opened his mouth.
"Okay, you're going to feel a slight pinch... here it comes." Dr. Stevenson injected the surrounding area with numbing agent and then grabbed a small, needle-like tool to insert into the rotting area of the tooth.
"So, when we checked the x-ray, it looked like there was something lodged inside the cavity."
"Like what?" Gary mumbled.
"That's what we're getting ready to find out."
Dr. Stevenson carefully stuck the instrument into the rotting hole and slowly moved it around.
Almost immediately, Gary felt a strange vibrating sensation. He then looked down to see something that startled him: Dr. Stevenson's eyes were as wide as could be, his gray eyebrows pointed up to his forehead, and his nose was wrinkled in disgust.
"I think I'm going to be sick!" One of the assistants immediately stood up and ran away.
"What's wrong?" Gary asked.
"Umm... I'm not sure how to tell you this, Gary, but there's a—"
"Ouch!" Gary screamed. The vibrating inside the tooth suddenly morphed into a sharp pain, cutting right through the numbing agent.
"Ow...ah... ahhhhhh!" Gary began screaming; the pain was like razor blades in his mouth. Something was crawling out of his cavity. He could feel it squirming and writhing as it pulled itself from the rotting hole. Puss and blood started squirting out as Gary felt little legs grasping onto his tongue.
Dr. Stevenson sat back in horror. As Gary continued screaming, a six-inch centipede, soaked in blood, emerged from the cavity where it had been living. It quickly scurried onto Gary's chin and down the side of his face, it then dropped down to the floor and in the blink of an eye darted into a small crack in the wall.
Gary never ate junk food again after that day.
Author's note: Centipedes, millipedes, and other creepy crawlies love dark, moist areas, so it's no surprise they have been found living in human ear canals, nasal passages, and other body cavities. Some even burrow inside your skin and lay eggs, a fact that is sure to make your skin crawl, quite literally.
Ups! Tento obrázek porušuje naše pokyny k obsahu. Před publikováním ho, prosím, buď odstraň, nebo nahraď jiným.
