Heather Thomas

I really did throw up then.

This is why I have no ambition to follow my mom into the nursing field.

I don't have the stomach for it.

But when those cysts burst open, it was less disgusting but much weirder than I had expected.

The liquid that came streaming out looked more like sap than anything animal.

and the little clusters of leafy fronds that uncurled from each one were delicate, quivering, as new and as fragile as the plants I'd sprouted from seeds and paper cups at school.

I might have stayed frozen, but my mom started screaming her head off and shoving at him with her arms and other leg.

I snapped out of it and ran at him, kicking him with a disgust turned to rage.

He rolled away over the bank and into the stream and made his way clumsily through it and onto the other side.

He staggered to his feet and started walking away, and then I wanted to throw up again.

His feet were unraveling, long strands of skin trailing behind him like water weeds.

More boils burst open along his body with audible pops, and the frills of leafy tendrils extended out to the sides, blindly questing like newborn kittens.

Now it was my turn to help my mom to her feet.

We didn't see any cuts on her leg, but she walked a little ways upstream and then peeled off her boots and socks and then gingerly stepped into the water.

She gave an involuntary scream when she felt how cold it was, but I could understand wanting to blast off any residue of that diseased flesh.

She said at least the cold was distracting her from the sharp rocks digging into her feet.

I frowned, because we really couldn't afford for her to have any kind of foot injury.

But when she clambered out of the stream and scrubbed her skin with the alcohol wipes from the first aid kit, there didn't seem to be any cuts on her legs or feet.

She quickly put her socks and boots back on.

Her face kept reverting back into a rictus of disgust.