Episode Notes
Penn is an ex-con and he needs a job, but on one fateful night he gets more than he bargained for when a maniac wants his SKIN! And that's before we even get to the monster...
The Worm Has Turned by David O’Hanlon
Music by Ray Mattis
http://raymattispresents.bandcamp.com
Produced by Daniel Wilder
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Transcription:
Penn scratched at the burgundy paint of the park’s picnic table with his thumbnail. He hated waiting almost as much as he hated being broke. Unfortunately for him, waiting was the only way his bills were getting paid. Penn’s employment history consisted entirely of community service and eight years on a prison farm. Car jacking and armed robbery didn’t look great under the ‘special skills’ portion of his resume. So, he waited.
“Hi,” a tiny voice squeaked beside him. “I’m Ed.”
Penn looked over at the boy who had slipped onto the bench beside him. He was scrawny, with oversized glasses and a shaggy mop of brown hair that filled the space between the lens and his eyes. His shirt was striped intentionally with horizontal bars of color—and unintentionally with vertical runs of ketchup. The offending condiment was drying around his mouth where it seemed to break away into the constellations of freckles that covered his entire face. Penn sighed. There was no way this kid had any friends to go bother instead.
“You don’t look like an Ed,” Penn said. “Here with your folks?”
“Nope,” Ed replied. He stared up at Penn, clearly not intending on giving up more information. “What’s your name, mister?”
“Everyone calls me Penn.” Penn hadn’t meant to answer, but part of him felt the need to give the kid a break. Life clearly wasn’t. “Shouldn’t you be playing? The swings look fun,” he suggested.
“I’m allergic to just about everything and I have basically no immune system.” Ed shrugged his narrow shoulders. “The swings give me motion sickness, anyways.” 
“Then why are you at the park?”
“Got nowhere else to be. Mom says her cats are allergic to me too and that I should give them a break. What about you?” Ed scooped the hair to the outside of the glasses so he could see a little better. “You’re too old for swings.”
“First of all, no one is too old for swings.” Penn held up two fingers. “Secondly, I’m working.”
Ed nodded sagely. “What job has you sit in a park?”
“The kind that requires solitude.”
“Oh,” Ed sighed. “I’d be really good at that job.”
“Jesus Christ, kid.” Penn pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ve seen Lifetime movies that were less depressing than you are. Do you want some food?”
“Just had three hot dogs,” Ed chirped happily.
Penn looked the frail little boy over suspiciously. “Where’d you put them, in your pockets?” 
“I have a really high metabolism. I can’t gain weight.” Ed’s face soured then perked back up. “It’s kind of nice because I could eat all the ice cream I wanted if I wasn’t lactose intolerant.”
Penn’s eyes rolled on their own. “Of course you are. Is there anything you don’t have wrong with you?”
“It’s probably safe to say I don’t have gigantism.” Ed snickered.
Penn’s stone face cracked and he busted out laughing. He patted Ed on the shoulder. “Well done, kid.”
Ed poked Penn’s right forearm. “That’s a neat tattoo. Does it mean something?”
Penn glanced at the arabesque design whose floral pattern twisted from the back of his hand to just past his elbow with a lion-like creature roaring in the center. “Yeah. It’s Burmese. That’s where my grandmother was from. She raised me, so I did this to remember her. She had an amulet with the same symbol that she wore everywhere. She said it was magic and protected her from evil.”
“That’s nifty. Do you believe in magic?” 
“Not particularly. You?”
“Of course.” Ed took a bag of gummi worms from his cargo pants and set them on the table. “Today is National Gummi Worm Day.”
“That a real thing?” Penn asked.
“Sure.” Ed opened the bag and plucked out a red-and-green worm. He put it between his buck-teeth and slurped it into his mouth with a giggle.
Penn smiled at the boy. It wasn’t an expression he got to use much. “I guess that’s a holiday I could get behind.”
“It’s also Give Something Away Day.”
“I’m generally on the other side of that one.” Penn snagged one of the boy’s worms with a wink.
“Then you’re in luck.” Ed took another bag of worms and set it in front of Penn. “I want to give you these.”
Penn’s eyebrow lurched at the gesture. “Why?”
“Because that way I can celebrate both holidays at once. It’s more efficient.”
“No, I meant why give them to me?” Penn stared at the bag like it might explode. “There’s plenty of kids here.”
Ed turned on the little bench and waved a bony hand across the expanse of the park. Kids shrieked and ran around, old men played chess under the trees, couples picnicked in the open areas, and a group of teens sold pot next to the forgotten volleyball court. 
Ed slurped another worm. “We’re the only two that are here alone,” he said between chewy bites. “I think that makes you worth sharing with.”
“Correction, you’re a Hallmark movie.” Penn rubbed the kid’s head. “Guess we’re not alone now. Thanks, Ed.” 
“No problem.” Ed pointed at a man walking toward them with a large envelope tucked under his arm and a gravestone expression on his square face. “That guy needs friends more than I do.”
“Oh, shit.” Penn stood up and dug in his pocket for second. He pulled out his last five-dollar-bill. “That’s my boss. Happy Give Something Away Day. Now, go get you some non-dairy ice cream.”
“Don’t forget your worms. I think you’re going to need them.” Ed smiled and took the money. “Want to hang out tomorrow?”
Penn tucked the gummi worms into his pocket and nodded. “Yeah, kid. We’ll meet here tomorrow, same time.”
Ed checked his watch, which was struggling to stay over his hand. “Roger, that.” 
Ed jumped up and hugged Penn around the waist. Penn stood perfectly still, not sure of what to do before deciding on a simple pat on the back. 
“Stay safe, Ed.” He walked away from the boy and went to meet the grim gentleman.
“Bye, Penn.” Ed waved frantically and trotted away.
 “Who the fuck is that?” the man asked with nod in Ed’s direction.
“An undercover cop,” Penn replied. “He’s really good, don’t you think?”
“Listen, wise ass, I can find any number of cons to get in on this. I’m talking to you as a favor, so when I ask a question, you give me a straight answer.”
“Chill, Richter.” Penn took the envelope from him. “He’s just a lonely kid looking for someone to talk to.”
“No shit he’s lonely. Look at the little loser,” Richter said. “I’ve seen bigger abortions.”
Penn smacked his lips and turned the envelope over in his hands. “You know, just because we’re criminals, doesn’t mean we have to be pricks.” 
Richter smiled at him. It wasn’t the kind of smile Penn shared with Ed. It was the kind Penn saw on inmates right before they stuck a sharpened toothbrush in someone’s throat. The expression was a morbid scar across Richter’s face and his words oozed like septic pus. 
“I heard you tell him to be back here tomorrow. Maybe you were just playing nice, but he’ll be here regardless. You’re going to go do your homework and be ready for my boys to pick you up and you’re going to cut the biggest-dick-in-the-cellblock routine.” Richter pressed two fingers into Penn’s chest and leaned closer. “Or tomorrow, I’m going to come here and I’m going to rip that little boy’s guts out to decorate the goddamn see-saw. This job goes off, smooth and by the numbers. Say ‘yes, sir’ and get moving.”
Penn glanced at Ed waiting in line for the ice cream. “Yes, sir.”

The job was not going smooth or by the numbers. Richter’s boys showed up at Penn’s apartment and took him to the fancy downtown apartments. The three of them rode the elevator to the seventeenth floor in their AES coveralls with their respective equipment stashed in toolboxes marked with the electric company’s logo. 
Only the seventeenth floor didn’t look like the pictures in Richter’s packet.
The three men panned their flashlights around the darkened space. Penn noticed the painter’s drop clothes on the floor and the paper that masked the windows from the overspray first. Then he noticed the lack of overspray. Where there were supposed to be apartments, there was only exposed pipes, conduit, and two-by-fours marking off their future locations. Not only were the units unlived in, but they were nowhere near being ready to paint.
“Anyone else got a bad feeling about this?” Penn asked.
“Zip it,” the larger man on the crew said in a voice like shattering glass—high and coarse with an accent of the danger it brought. “Maybe we got the wrong floor.”
“Yeah, I’m sure that’s it,” the other reassured him. Sweat beaded his brow above the snake tattoo that cut down the left side of his face. “We just got off on the wrong floor.”
“You’re both idiots,” Penn grunted. “Unless we’re stealing power tools, we’re in the wrong building. The package said this place was fully rented.”
“Obviously they didn’t count the floors that were under construction,” the big one said.
Penn leaned on the frame of a future kitchen counter and dug the bag of gummi worms from his pocket. “When one of you geniuses figures out which floor we’re supposed to be on, let me know. How about that?”
“What are you doing?” the man with the face tat asked.
“Taking lunch.” Penn put a pair of the delectable worms in his mouth. He shook the bag in his direction. “I should probably share since it’s Give Something Away Day.”
“That a real thing?” Snake-face asked.
“Of course.” Penn swallowed half the mouthful. “It’s also Gummi Worm Day. No one thinks the drop clothes are out of place?”
“They’re in the perfect place,” someone said. 
The words carried through the darkened hallway like a chill breeze