Killer Toothache

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

Killer Toothache

By Plot Roach

My teeth were killing me and four days into the torture that was my life, my dentist tells me he can’t find anything wrong with me. We’ve done x-rays, he’s sampled the infected areas, and still nothing. And about the time I’m ready to take a shotgun to my head, my mother calls. The family wants me over for dinner.

“Not tonight, Mom.” I tell her. “I’ve got a killer toothache.”

“Which one, dear?” she asks.

“Does it really make a difference?”

“Just tell me.”

So I do. They are twin orbs of burning pain on either side of my upper jaw, about an inch away on either side of my buck teeth. She tells me to come over, that there are some home remedies she has that have been handed down over the years, that are sure to do the trick. I’ve tried everything that I can find on the internet, but it only seems to make matters worse, so sure, I tell her. I’ll come over.

Dad is already home from golfing with friends, he gives me a sad, but appreciative look and pats my shoulder as he ushers me into the house. My brother Scott is there as well, he jabs me in the side and makes fun of my chipmunk cheeks, there’s been a lot of swelling to go along with the pain. And he makes sure to poke fun at both.

“Ah, hell.” he says, with another poke in the ribs. ”We all went through it too.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

But Dad gives him a ‘knowing look’, and Mom ushers me upstairs into her ‘sewing room’, which used to be my bedroom when I lived here. She’s got enough surgical equipment laying around to outfit an emergency room in the local hospital and I wonder just what she has planned for the swelling in my gums.

“Uh, Mom..” I say, backing away from the stainless steel torture implements laid out by the sink. “If my dentist couldn’t find anything, what makes you think that you can?”

“Because I’m your mother.” she says, patting me on the back. “I know every inch of you. I am, after all, the one who made you.”

“But this is different..” I star to argue. But she won’t put up with it, instead steering me to sit on the toilet seat lid as she lines up all her tools.

“This will hurt a little, I can’t help that. But it would have been easier on you if you had come to me first.”

“I didn’t know you were a dentist…”

She waves my comment away and puts a metal contraption in my mouth that holds my mouth open -painfully- while she goes to work. “You tried garlic and colloidal silver?” she asks, not waiting for an answer I cannot give vocally. And I dare not move my head to nod while she has a scalpel in there. “That was a mistake, it only made the swelling worse…” She rubs something on the infected gums and goes to work with the scalpel and a set of long needle nosed pliers that I hope have not spent time in my father’s greasy tool box. I smell the blood, but my sense of taste is off what with the stuff she rubbed on my gums. She tells me to keep spitting and I’m amazed and worried about the amount of blood and tissue in the sink. Just when I think that I’m about to pass out from the sight of it, she announces that she’s done.

“Now, I’ll have to tell you to refrain from eating tonight, but somehow I don’t think you would have been up to it.”

I nod, not really up to conversation. I feel like the walls are closing in and the floor is swimming up to meet me. But my mother keeps an iron strong arm around me and leads me downstairs. We stop at the mirror at the end of the stairway where I look at the damage. There are two minute holes now cut into my gums where the swelling was. And within these holes are tiny white pearls.

“What?” I ask, taking a closer look.

“Let’s sit down at the dinner table, and your father and I will explain.”

Scott is already there, tearing into a rare steak and winking at me as he notices my revulsion at the thought of eating. “Green isn’t a good look on you Sis.” he says, shoveling in another bite.

“Don’t tease your sister at a time like this” my mother scolds.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“You’re finally an adult.” my father says, beaming as if I had won a Nobel Peace Prize.

“Dad,” I say. “I’m pretty sure that happened five years ago at summer camp.”

“We don’t mean your menses, dear girl.” my mother says, rolling her eyes. “We mean that you are finally one of us.”

“One of…?”

In response, my brother opens his mouth wide. He’s got two holes in his upper gums too. Why had I not noticed this before? He smiles, and then the fangs come down, over his other teeth. His human teeth. I look around the table. Mom and Dad are doing it too. Everyone laughs- except me.

“But?….”

“Oh, yours are just little things now, blunt and in need of a good work out. They’ll come to a point soon enough. Until then, you might want to stick to a liquid diet.” my mother says, patting me on the hand. “I’ll give you a good recipe for blood and which vitamins to fortify it with. And, of course, which butchers to go to for the freshest supplies.”

“And when you’re ready, I’ll teach you how to hunt.” Scott says. “With Dad’s help.” Both Dad and he look at me like they’ve found a new playmate. And maybe they have. I take a swig of the stuff my mother has concocted for me and while it doesn’t taste great, it does do the trick. I feel better already. But I can’t help but wonder what the real thing, straight from the vein, will taste like once I’m through my ’milk teeth’ and ready for the hunt.