Squirmers: A Nap Lapkin Story (Part 1)

Prelude (hundreds of years ago)

“Leave none alive.”

That was what his father, the chief of the Kaskaskia Indians, had said to him. So here he was, creeping through the darkness with seventy of their strongest warriors. They moved silently through the forest, more shadows than men. Each filled with a mixture of adrenaline and dread, knowing what was to come.

Eventually they saw the glowing fires of the encampment and the outlines of teepees dotting the landscape. He gestured to the men in his party and they began to spread out, some of the pulling their tomahawks and knives from their belts.

It was a cloudless night and the moon illuminated the land that this foreign tribe had been calling home for the last few years. They had set down roots and had spent numerous evenings in the company of the very men who were now fanning out silently.

The chief’s son paused a moment, lost in reflection. Remembering how everything had changed after his father had come back from a visit with them. While he did not go into any details, he told his son he’d witnessed a ceremony that he called “an affront to nature. An abomination.”

And so here he stood. It was completely silent, not even a cricket chirped.

He nodded and his men slipped into each teepee. They moved with a singular, practiced purpose. At his command, a soft imitation of an owl, the war party did as instructed and for the next minutes all he could hear was the wet thuds of weapons crushing skulls. Terrified screams filled the night and then nothing.

Men. Women. Children.

All slain where they slept.

The men took nothing, they simply used the embers from the dying fires and set everything alight. They were there to completely erase all memory of the Indians that had been sharing the land with them.

When he was sure there was nothing left to burn, he turned and began the long walk back to his village.

Present Day

When it came time for his friends to assemble and remember his passing, the one thing that everyone will be able to agree on when it came to Nap Lapkin was that he was always well hydrated. While he had a laundry’s list of things that he would point to as being important in his physical and mental routines, hydration was the cornerstone.

As such, it was not unusual that his sleep would be interrupted by the need to pee.

So it was on this very random yet very particular evening. He shuffled through to the toilet as his mind immediately jumped back to the last thing he was wrestling with before he drifted off.

“Do they have people that try each chicken finger after they come out of the oven and see which tastes better? Is it a health issue?” he said aloud to nobody. What he was referencing was the seemingly random yet seemingly specific heating instructions that appear on the various bags of chicken fingers that populated his freezer.

Some say heat for 20 minutes and 375 degrees while other suggest 425 degrees for 13 minutes. Look through enough bags and you’ll see one that states 17 minutes at 400 degrees.

“Is it the thickness of the strip?” He began to pee, perplexed as he was about the chicken strip dilemma. So perplexed in fact that he stood over the toilet for as full minute after he’d finished. “Is it the type of chicken?”

It was then, still in the grips of perplexedness, that he glanced out of the window in his bathroom. His house was about three quarters of the way down a cull de sac. His bathroom looked out towards the end of the street and the houses that surrounded the large circle of pavement. It was between two of these houses that his eyes were drawn.

To what looked like a small figure standing motionless. Nap squinted to try to make out more details but the shape remained cast in shadows. He waited for several minutes for the figure to move, wondering who would be standing there in the middle of the night. It had to be a child, or a very short man, and it appeared they were wearing only a loin cloth, but details were hard to come by.

“If I put the chicken in for the same amount of total heat, would that cook it enough?” said Nap as he made his way back to his bed. “Like… one minute at 7000 degrees?” He laughed and crawled under the covers.

He never had any issues falling asleep. In fact it might be the only talent that would give his hydration a run for its money. He worked hard to develop the ability to catch a quick nap anywhere and anytime, standing, hanging by his ankles, whatever, and it was said that he was even able to drop off for a few moments while being water boarded. Within minutes he was back to a healthy REM state.

But not before having one word pop into his head; “Walcott.”