Jordan Triplett is just a small-town girl trying to survive the cornfields of rural Illinois. From a young age, she’s had a passion for reading that only grew as she got older. Naturally, this turned into a love for writing and exploring the bounds of her creativity. Horror is her favourite genre, but she won’t turn up her nose at a good romance or historical.
While her full-time job as a Paralegal and pursuing her bachelor’s degree takes up most of her time, Jordan enjoys reading, writing, listening to music, watching sports, and running her book blog, Alpha’s Court.
SOMETHING IN YOUR MOUTH
by
Jordan Triplett
Happy birthday to you,
My name is Vivian Hawke, and my 21st birthday was the worst day of my life.
Everyone looks forward to their 21st birthday, and I was no exception. When we turned 18, my best friend and I made a pact. We would each take the other out for their 21st birthday. She turned 21 in May, and I took her out as promised. The day had finally come for me, and we were going out tonight.
Happy birthday to you,
But first, I had to go to the dentist.
I’ve never been a fan of the dentist, avoided it the best I could for years, but something was wrong. You see, two weeks ago, I woke up with a horrible toothache; the kind that throbs in your skull until there’s nothing left but you and the pain. I took a couple aspirins and didn’t think anything more of it.
A couple days passed and every day I woke with that damn toothache. I tried everything I could think of to stop that toothache, but nothing seemed to work. Then one day, I felt something shift. I woke up, and the side of my face felt swollen. I ran my tongue over the teeth on that side, I could swear I felt something thin and sharp next to the molar in the back. I stared hard at the inside of my mouth in the bathroom mirror and could barely see something dark and shiny. I convinced myself it was an exposed nerve, or a root from the tooth next to it, but either way, it needed to be checked out.
As much as I didn’t want to.....it was time to go to the dentist, and what better day than my birthday. Get the nasty business taken care of first, then go out and have a few drinks to celebrate with my best friend that night.
Happy birthday, dear Vivian,
By the time my appointment rolled around, the whole left side of my face was swollen, and it looked like a tennis ball had lodged itself in my cheek. I could barely talk, and my mouth wouldn’t close all the way. The nurse who greeted me at the check-in counter tried her best to be friendly, but she couldn’t quite mask the incredulous horror as she stared at my disfigured face.
The dentist was no better. He brought me back to the room, eyes locked on the bulge in my face. I could’ve been dancing a jig naked in front of him, and he’d never have noticed. I tried my best to explain to him what had been happening the last two weeks, but it came out garbled. I’m not sure that he understood a word of what I said. Deciding it was best to just show him, I stretched my jaw as much as I could with my face like it was and gestured to the left side.
His eyes widened and panic flashed across his face before he could mask it. My heart threatened to beat out of my chest, fear lodging itself deep in my gut. I had been too afraid to look in the mirror, but I was sure I knew what he was seeing. Yesterday, something started moving in my mouth. It was subtle at first, just a slight twitch here and there, but as the day wore on, whatever was there got bolder. It twitched back and forth across my back teeth and wound teasingly around my tongue. I felt its spines stabbing into my gums as it wriggled across to the other side of my mouth as far as it could go.
A whimper escaped my throat as my vision started dimming at the edges. The panic had set in too fast, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before I passed out completely. The last thing I saw before the darkness
took me was the blood spraying across the dentist’s horrified pace as a giant, segmented brown mass tore itself from me and burrowed through the dentist’s mask.
Happy birthday to you!