The Host: A political parasite novel

Prologue

The Hospital

“The man is certifiably insane,” Bethera mumbled to the coworker beside her as explosions lit up the dark screen on the mounted television in the doctors’ lounge at LaLa Medical Center, located on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.

“He even looks deranged,” Dr. Alex Speck said, squinting at the screen as if poor resolution were the only thing keeping the images from appearing that way.

“This is the end of the world,” a nurse who had just entered the room volunteered.

Bethera, Dr. Bethera Rawner, the hospital’s Chief Medical Officer, partly agreed but kept those thoughts to herself. She was already mentally inventorying supplies: water, canned goods, and batteries, wondering if it was time to take a vacation and hunker down for the worst of the fallout. Preferably somewhere without internet. Or at least she could dream. For now, they were understaffed, and she was working an emergency room rotation. This tended to crop up monthly. Luckily, she enjoyed the time on the ER floor, and it kept her skills from getting rusty.

Bethera glanced back at the television. The country had elected an unhinged man. He behaved like a twelve-year-old who had never been told “no,” and it was getting worse, which was something she hadn’t expected. President Lurmond (Tad P. Lurmond, to be precise) was making the U.S. a world target, which generally spelled disaster and, more personally, due to a chronic deficiency of doctors and nurses, guaranteed Bethera would not be going into retirement anytime soon.

“Dr. Rawner, we have another patient with the same symptoms as the man from yesterday,” Nurse Jeanette McRocks said, causing Bethera to tear her eyes away from the television.

Nurse McRocks, with her beautiful dark skin and amazing brown eyes, was their star performer and someone Bethera enjoyed working with. She reminded Beth of her younger self, and she often encouraged the nurse to take the MCAT and become a doctor. She was definitely smart enough. But more than that, she had the compassion needed to be a great physician.

Bethera took another quick glance at the television before looking away. The world ending would need to wait.

She shuffled after the nurse and managed to keep up, despite the fact that Nurse McRocks acted as if she were running a marathon. At seventy-two, Bethera loved the work, or she would have left years ago. More importantly, she couldn’t imagine being home all day in an empty house without Bill. If she were going to retire, she should have done it when Bill was alive so they could’ve traveled.

Who wants to travel alone? Not her. Not even to Hawaii. Especially not Hawaii. Bill’s dream was to retire there, wear leis, walk along the beach, and become an islander. He’d been a good man with a bad heart. She missed him every day.

The nurse brought her attention back to the patient. “Her husband said his wife started acting strange about two months ago, and it gradually got worse.” They turned the corner, and she continued, “This morning, the only word she would say was ‘water.’”

Bethera’s stomach knotted low in her gut.

“He said she filled the bathtub and tried to drown herself.”

“Water!” a woman cried as Bethera entered the emergency room.

The patient was just like the man who had died yesterday. She bolted upright in the bed while her husband struggled to restrain her. His exhaustion and desperation showed clearly. If it were anything like the last patient, this man had already tried reason, pleading, and bargaining with God. He was now out of options.

The woman wore a blue, soiled nightgown. Her chin-length, dark, layered bob was an oily mess sticking up at odd angles. Her eyes were bloodshot, her face pale, and she looked at Bethera with a lack of intensity that showed she wasn’t all there. Death was in her eyes, exactly like the last patient’s.

Bethera refused to give up. She would save this one.

“I’m Dr. Bethera Rawner,” she said calmly to the husband, who wore a rumpled shirt and jeans that may or may not have needed washing. His tired green eyes told his story best.

“Nurse McRocks has given me the basics,” Bethera continued, “but I’d like to hear it from you.” She placed her stethoscope on the woman’s chest. “This will be a bit cool,” she warned gently. The woman gazed straight ahead and didn’t acknowledge her.

Heart rate normal. Lungs clear.

“Water,” the woman moaned, her voice cracking while she continued her long-distance stare.

“She started acting strange a couple of months ago,” the husband interjected. “She yelled at the TV because she said they didn’t like her. When I asked who ‘they’ were, she said it was the voters and she didn’t believe the election’s outcome. We haven’t had an election in three months, but that’s all she dwells on. She started calling in sick at her job. She’s a broadcast journalist with a specialty in court reporting. She loves her career.”

He took a breath before he continued, “Keira’s not the domestic type, and even that’s changed. Usually, she makes the bed, I don’t know, twice a week and does a barely passable job.” He smiled at the memory. “Yesterday, a Marine sergeant could have bounced a quarter off our sheets. Today, she couldn’t care less about the bed, and all she wants is water.” He swallowed. “I think she’s going to drown herself. She fought me when I pulled her out of the tub.”

He held up his arm; long red scratches stood out against pale skin. “This is what she did. She’s gone crazy.”

“Water!” Keira wailed.

Bethera didn’t respond to the man right away. They didn’t have the autopsy results back from yesterday’s patient, which made this more difficult. Pathology was backed up because, of course, it was. Death was having a busy season. She would contact Ian Choufanty, the hospital’s pathologist, and see if he could put a rush on the case.

A horrible stench filled the cubicle. Bethera stiffened. It was the same offensive odor as the last patient. Not the sharp rot of death, human waste, or the familiar scent of infection, but something wrong. It was as if her body were fermenting instead of dying. The thick, wet odor clung to the air, sour and maybe fishy, layered with the ammonia sting of spoiled urine and feces, but worse. It caught in the back of the throat and refused to move, coating the tongue and lingering even after you tried to hold your breath.

“What is that?” the husband asked, wrinkling his nose, covering the lower half of his face with a hand, and stepping back.

“Nurse,” Bethera said carefully as she tried to breathe without flinching, “she’ll need to be cleaned. Get some help and a hospital gown.” She turned to the husband and lowered her voice. “I’ll be honest. Until yesterday, we hadn’t seen these symptoms. This is new to us. What you’re smelling is what she’s expelling.”

The man blinked. “Expelling?”

“Yes,” Bethera said. “From her pores.”

They stepped into the hallway as another nurse entered. The husband leaned forward. “Is the other patient improving?” he asked.

Bethera didn’t sugarcoat. She never had. “The man yesterday died five hours after arriving.”

Hope drained out of the husband’s face so fast Bethera almost reached for him. “Keira is going to die?” he whispered.

“That’s the worst-case scenario,” Bethera said. “We will do everything we can to prevent it. I sent an email to the physicians’ network yesterday. I’m waiting to hear back.”

The man stared. “You emailed a network?”

“Yes. It’s the fastest way to get answers. They blast an alert to every doctor on their list. I’ve used this method before; it cuts through the red tape of normal channels and finds solutions.”

Bethera turned to the nurse and rattled off tests, ordering cardiac monitoring and an IV line before she finished the preliminary exam.

“I need to check your throat,” she said after looking inside the patient’s ears. The woman didn’t move. Bethera turned Keira’s head gently. No response. She seemed to be more advanced than yesterday's patient.

Bethera felt the familiar dread settle in her chest. Hope was quickly slipping away.

Two hours later, the monitors screamed as her heart rate climbed and her blood pressure spiked, then crashed into uneven waves. Keira’s oxygen saturation slipped no matter how much air they forced into her lungs.

“Intubate,” Bethera ordered. “Now.”

A tube slid past Keira’s teeth and vocal cords. The ventilator settings were adjusted again and again, oxygen pushed higher, then higher still. It barely helped. Her chest rose obediently, but the numbers refused to improve. Fluids flooded her system with cold saline to chase a blood pressure that wouldn’t stay put. Broad-spectrum antibiotics followed. Antivirals, too. If there were even a chance it was something known, something treatable, Bethera wasn’t going to miss it.

She checked Keira’s labs for toxins and inflammatory markers, looking for anything that might explain why her body was behaving as if it were at war with itself.

The patient’s temperature climbed anyway.

Ice packs were packed into her groin and underarms with cooling blankets wrapped around her torso. Acetaminophen was pushed, then stronger measures when it failed. Keira’s muscles tremored beneath the sheets with small, violent shudders that no amount of sedation seemed to calm.

“She’s seizing,” Nurse McRocks said.

Benzodiazepines went in. Then more. The seizure activity slowed. Her abdomen distended, hardening beneath Bethera’s probing hands.

They ran imaging. CT. Ultrasound. Nothing made sense. No bleeding. No obstruction. Just heat and a hard abdomen.

“She’s acidotic,” someone said quietly.

Bicarbonate followed, then vasopressors to keep her heart pushing blood where it needed to go. Her veins constricted and her skin mottled, even as the machines insisted she was still alive. For a moment, the numbers stabilized.

Hope flickered in Bethera’s heart.

“V-fib,” the monitor announced in its calm, mechanical voice.

Hands were on her chest immediately. Shock paddles were next; once, then twice. Epinephrine was pushed repeatedly.

Keira’s body jerked under the shock, then fell still.

They worked on her for thirty-seven minutes.

When they finally stopped, the room was silent except for the ventilator, still breathing for a body that no longer could.

Someone reached up and turned it off.

Bethera called time of death.

Keira’s husband was led back into the room. He sobbed and hugged his wife’s body.

Bethera was charting Keira Alk’s death when Nurse McRocks stuck her head into the corridor. “Dr. Rawner,” she said in the careful voice nurses used when they were trying to stay calm. “We’ve got another one.”

Bethera closed her eyes.

“She walked in under her own power,” McRocks said hopefully.

The third patient was younger, mid-twenties, with an athletic build. She sat on the gurney with her hands folded in her lap, posture perfect, as if she were at a job interview. A man hovered nearby, clutching a phone he wasn’t using.

“She says she feels fine,” the nurse added. “Mostly. But she hasn’t stopped talking about water.”

Bethera looked at the chart Nurse McRocks handed her. Elevated temperature but not at a danger point yet. Her vitals were good. For now. There might be hope.

“Doctor?” the woman said brightly as Bethera approached. “I know this sounds strange, but do you have a fountain or a hose? I’m not picky.”

The woman looked much better than Keira had, and she was talking in complete sentences, which was also positive. Her hair wasn’t brushed, but it didn’t carry the oily sheen, either.

“When did this start?” Bethera asked, already checking her pupils.

“Oh, weeks ago,” the woman answered. “Months, really. I kept thinking it was stress. Or hormones. Or maybe one of those personal awakenings people get when they detox.”

“Did you detox?” Bethera asked, hoping for a physiological cause.

“I detox three days each month starting on the first. Green juice smoothies are my thing. By day three, I have more energy. This last detox was just, wow, and I couldn’t stop working.”

Her boyfriend laughed nervously. “She reorganized the pantry alphabetically.”

“By brand,” the woman corrected. “Spices by Latin name.”

Bethera paused. “And before that?”

“I was normal. I mean, like, normal-normal. Now I feel like my thoughts are expanding and I’m searching for something.” She leaned forward suddenly. “Do you smell that?”

Bethera did. The boyfriend’s smile faltered. “Is that her?”

“Yes,” Bethera said.

“That’s comforting,” the man said faintly.

The woman tilted her head. “It wants to leave,” she said, almost curious. “That’s good, right?”

“What wants to leave?” Bethera asked as chills traveled across her skin.

“It.” The woman acted as if that explained everything. “I just need water,” she continued. “Not to drink. To be in. Does that make sense?”

“No,” her boyfriend said quickly. “It really doesn’t.”

She frowned at him, irritation flickering across her face. “You’re being very obnoxious.”

The air of coincidence was gone. Three patients were no longer an anomaly. This was a pattern.

“Nurse,” Bethera said, “let’s start a series of tests after you get her set up with fluids.”

The woman suddenly stiffened. Her back arched, and her hands gripped the rails hard enough for Bethera to hear the bed frame groan.

“I don’t have time,” she said. Her voice went flat. “It wants to leave.” She looked straight at Bethera. “It just wants out.”

Then she went still, staring at nothing, just like Keira Alk.

Chapter 1

Mr. Future President

Tad P. Lurmond wasn’t like most men who ran for the presidency. For one thing, he wasn’t a golf man.

He played pickleball.

And he didn’t just play; he dominated the sport, and the courts bent to his will. Losing was not something Tad tolerated well. No, that wasn’t honest; he didn’t tolerate it at all. Having spent his adult life as the CEO of several corporations, which he ran with the subtlety of a wrecking ball, he was perfect to lead the free world.

Tad had harbored presidential aspirations for more than twenty years and was finally at a place where he could put his hard work into play. If he were being honest again, he would add that demolishing the competition could be dirty work, and that was something else he was good at. It didn’t get any dirtier than being elected President of the United States.

For years, he’d been making deals with foreign powers through his business connections. Authoritarian regimes wanted his favor after he cemented himself as their best option. These people operated between the lines of the legal and the outright diabolical. Tad was in good company.

Dressed in dark shorts and a white polo shirt, he was on the pickleball court with his vice-presidential hopeful, Cade J. Van, who, if he played his cards right, would soon be standing one heartbeat away from the presidency and privately wondering how his life had taken such an incredible turn.

Tad clocked Cade as a mediocre pickleball player at best. The man had played the sport a few times, but he didn’t love it, which Tad considered a moral failing. Still, Cade surprisingly played a respectable game. Tad stayed ahead by a few points, just enough to establish dominance without looking petty. It was a balance Tad had perfected over decades of hostile boardrooms. There were times when graciousness was not a negative and could be the perfect manipulation. This was something else Tad was exceptional at.

“9–6,” Tad called, serving hard. His killer serves, which barely skimmed over the net and came in with wicked spin, were hard to return.

The volley dragged on longer than Tad liked. Pickleball was a sport meant to be won efficiently, without negotiation. Eventually, Tad took the point.

“10–6. Game point.”

He served again. Cade lunged, slipped just enough to miss, and the ball flew past him.

Game.

They walked to the side fence to grab water. A Secret Service agent, accustomed to adjusting his personal space around the asset, stepped back a polite distance. Tad had known security before. It had been private, expensive, and invisible, but the Secret Service had a way of making even a casual drink of water feel like a diplomatic act.

“I like you,” Tad said, handing Cade a bottle. “What do you say we take a fishing trip next week and get to know each other better?”

Fishing was Tad’s other passion.

Cade blinked, clearly unprepared for a test involving wildlife. “That works for me,” he said after a short hesitation. “Haven’t fished in years, but it sounds like a good time.”

Tad didn’t love that answer, but he filed it away instead of killing the moment. Everyone had weaknesses. Cade’s were simply outdoors-adjacent.

He chose Caddo Lake for the fishing trip.

Most people didn’t realize Texas had swamps. That ignorance amused Tad. The land running between Texas and Louisiana was thick with bayous, sloughs, and water that looked like it carried every disease known to mankind. If Cade could handle dark water and mosquitoes the size of small drones, he could handle Washington. If not, well, it was better to know early.

Cade had never held public office, which had its good points for his political aspirations. He had clawed his way into national recognition hosting a one-hour cable talk show where he spoke loudly, confidently, and often incorrectly. The show’s popularity exploded overnight. People loved him or hated him, and Tad needed both demographics energized.

The man had other advantages, too. He wasn’t handsome. Not ugly, just moderately average. Standing beside Tad on a stage, he wouldn’t compete for attention. Cade’s hair was thinning fast, while Tad’s remained thick and dark. The fact that Tad’s hair had been professionally engineered to remain that way was irrelevant. Tad, according to Tad, looked good for a man in his sixties. He didn’t see his heavy jaw as jowls or his expanding waist as fat. People told him he looked great, and he believed them.

Cade looked his age.

And it was the look Tad needed.

He scheduled the fishing trip for the following weekend.

Caddo Lake was awash with the sounds of nature if you paid attention. Neither man did. Cypress trees rose straight out of the water, and Spanish moss drooped from their branches, swaying gently in long curtains. It was the perfect place for privacy.

They launched the small craft just after dawn. Tad liked early starts. It showed discipline, which made other, undisciplined people uncomfortable. It was a test.

The Secret Service, in their uncomfortable suits, had their own boat and stayed back. Cade wore brand-new fishing gear, still stiff, and Tad figured the tags had been removed that morning. He himself was dressed in beige deck shorts and a long-sleeved orange T-shirt that had seen many fishing trips.

“You’ll want to stay hydrated,” Tad said, tossing Cade a canteen. “Heat sneaks up on you out here.”

Even this early, the swamp was warm. The temperature would increase rapidly, but what truly materialized was the humidity.

Cade unscrewed the lid and took a long drink, grimacing. “Tastes strange.”

“Swamp water has character,” Tad said. He waited to see if Cade would refuse more. He didn’t. The water came from the bathroom sink located just inside the park entrance. Tad hated bottled water with a passion. It tasted strange to him, and he planned to use plastic's threat to wildlife in order to get it banned. He couldn't care less about wildlife, but when you wanted to accomplish something, messaging was important.

He took a drink from his own canteen. It tasted fine. Clean enough. Tad was a man’s man. A survivor. He’d watched hundreds of hours of survival videos and knew everything there was to know about staying alive in the wild.

He often referred to himself as an expert on the subject, and, truthfully, he was an expert on most subjects. That’s what you got when you had an insanely high IQ.

He dropped the canteen over the side of the boat to keep it cool. It was tied off with rope and trailed behind them like an obedient pet. This was another of the tricks he’d learned from one of those alpha-male shows.

After baiting their hooks, they fished in silence for a while. Cade fidgeted. Tad did not.

Something swam beneath the surface. Not a fish, but something microscopic that moved easily through the water undetected.

“You ever feel like something’s watching you?” Cade asked, half-joking.

“No,” Tad said. “That’s paranoia.”

Cade laughed and drank again.

The thing in the water, nearly invisible, drifted closer, drawn by the boat’s vibration. It slipped past the canteen’s cap, which hadn’t been properly tightened. The organism went unnoticed; a filament no one would consider a threat.

Thirty minutes later, it was inside Tad P. Lurmond, the future President of the United States.

Tad capped his canteen and wiped his mouth. For a brief moment, he felt something tingle. Then he forgot about it.

Politics required focus.

The parasite began its work to learn and find the perfect host. It was very, very patient.

Chapter 2

Mr. Future Vice President

Cade J. Van woke up itchy, sunburned, and irritated. Not in the metaphorical way he usually experienced mornings, but in a literal, inflammation-lacking-steroids way. His left calf looked like it had lost a fistfight with a beehive. His neck was peeling. His right shoulder had achieved a shade of red usually associated with firetrucks.

Worth it. So damned worth it.

He lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, letting the itch bloom and recede in waves while cataloging the damage.

No sunscreen. No bug spray. No complaints.

One did not bring DEET on a fishing trip with Tad P. Lurmond. That was how you got quietly downgraded from potential running mate to the guy who lacked balls. You especially didn’t reapply sunscreen in front of him like some kind of soft, lotion-dependent, woke idiot.

Cade scratched once, hard, then stopped. Scratching was how you showed weakness. He had learned early in life that weakness was the mind allowing frailty to rule.

For years, he’d studied Tad closely. He’d known the man was going places probably before Tad did, and those places were also Cade’s life ambition. Tad was his ticket to get there in the easiest way possible. Cade was all about easy.

He rolled out of bed, padded barefoot to the bathroom, and caught sight of himself in the mirror. The bites were worse than he thought. Raised and angry, some of them looked like they might explode; they were so puffy.

“Still worth it,” he told his reflection.

The phone buzzed.

Bane.

Cade smiled. Bane Stevnon always knew. For the producer of Cade’s highly watched show, this was an important personality trait. The man was also ruthless and had no problem cutting corners when it got him what he wanted.

Cade hit speaker and leaned against the sink.

“You alive?” Bane asked.

“Barely. If I die of West Nile, tell the story correctly.”

Bane laughed. “You go fishing with the future president or wrestle an anthill?”

“Both,” Cade said. “But I won.”

“You lost,” Bane corrected. “On purpose.”

“Exactly.” He gave a soft chuckle.

Cade turned on the shower, letting cold water blast his shoulder. It stung like hell, which he considered a bonus. Pain kept you honest. He was an ace racquetball player and played to win. Pickleball was for pussies, and he couldn’t have cared less that he lost. Besides, nobody beat Tad P. Lurmond if they wanted something from him.

“You should’ve seen him,” Cade said loudly over the sound of water. “Pickleball first. He needed that win like oxygen. I shaved points, let my foot slip, and missed an easy return. The man practically glowed. It would never occur to him that anyone let him win. He thinks he’s the master of the court, but he’s really the master of the rich and powerful, even if it makes no sense.”

“Told you,” Bane said. “You never outshine the sun. You orbit it.”

Cade nodded, even though Bane couldn’t see him. “Same thing with fishing. I let him lead and lecture. I asked dumb questions so he could think he was teaching me something. I also acted impressed when he explained how tying off a canteen made him a survivalist.”

“He dragged the canteen behind the boat?” Bane asked with a laugh.

“Like a toddler with a balloon,” Cade agreed. “He watched so many survival videos during COVID he thinks he invented self-reliance. If I had to hear one more sermon about the importance of knowing how to start a fire with no tools, I might have strangled the man.”

“Good to know you used your handling skills.”

“I nodded and admired so he could preen,” Cade said. “More than that, I drank swamp water and pretended I enjoyed it.”

“You’re insane.”

“I’m ambitious.”

He shut off the shower and grabbed a towel, carefully patting, never rubbing, the worst of the bites. Thankfully, the shower gave him respite from the itching. It wouldn’t last, but he would enjoy the relief for now.

“Here’s the thing,” Cade said. “Tad hates losing. Not dislikes. Hates. You can feel it in him. It’s not competitive; it’s existential. If he loses, the world tips sideways in a bad way.”

“Basically, you’re saying he’s a schmuck.”

“You say schmuck, I say goober with fake hair. I didn’t beat or challenge him. I let him be the winner, which was harder than I expected.”

Bane was quiet for a second. “And?”

“And he invited me back. Said we’d ‘talk more soon.’ Which is ace for ‘you passed the audition.’”

“You don’t even like him.”

Cade snorted. “I don’t like politicians, period. I like proximity to power, and Tad offers access. His is the room you want to be in when decisions get made.”

“And the vice presidency?”

Cade smiled. “That’s leverage with the title to make it work. It’s my entry point to the future presidency, and I don’t plan to waste this opportunity.”

He sat on the edge of the bed and inspected a bite on his ankle that had decided to swell out of spite. He smeared a glob of anti-itch cream on it.

“You know what the real trick is?” Cade said as he rubbed it in a soft, circular motion.

“What?”

“Never letting them know you’re smarter than they are. Especially when they think they’re the smartest man in the swamp, and they are anything but.”

Bane laughed. “You’re a terrible person.”

“Yes,” Cade said pleasantly. “But I’d be an excellent vice president, and one day, I will hold the highest office. If it means massaging Tad’s weenie, I’ll do it.”

That got an even bigger laugh.

He ended the call and stood, mentally drafting talking points, already rehearsing admiration, and deciding which version of himself Tad would need to see next.

Outside, somewhere far from Cade’s apartment, something moved quietly through water. And something inside Tad P. Lurmond was beginning to wake up.