Silence the Living

by Brian Bandell

  “Okay, we’re in Louisiana now.” Aaron snuck a peek at the paper map on the dashboard. Going old-school became necessary after they ditched their phones to avoid being tracked. “We can stay on I-10 and go through New Orleans, or take I-12 on the north side of Lake Pontchartrain. After that, we can keep heading west or take I-55 north towards St. Louis.”

  “Stay north of the lake and go west. Keep me away from the big cities, even if you have to exit the highway and take back country roads.”

  “Texas bound, huh? What’s there?”

  “West Texas and beyond. It’s what’s not there…people and water.”

  “Doesn’t sound like the ideal vacation spot, but okay. Aren’t you worried about wild animals getting infected too?”

  “They take orders from the most capable brain in a host body, so I’m the trump card. I can deal with infected animals if I’m aware of them. An infected person would be my equal.”

  Moni detected Aaron thinking whether she’d left any infected animals or mutants behind on the Space Coast, or maybe even another infected human. He wondered if Moni had fled to avoid arrest without finishing the job. Her gut seized up so hard that she grimaced as if someone had driven a boot to her. Moni’s hunger rolled into rage.

  Restraining herself, Moni realized she couldn’t blame Aaron for entertaining those thoughts. Given how she’d handled the murder investigation that preceded the invasion – putting the needs of the suspicious Mariella before solving the crimes – she shouldn’t be surprised that this crossed his mind. Moni stiffened her spine and took several measured breaths.

  “I made sure there wasn’t any alien nanotech left in Florida. If there was a single infected creature, I would have felt it like a blinking dot on a radar map. And just in case you’re wondering, I destroyed all the alien eggs in the lagoon before they could develop. The only thing you have to worry about—is me.”

  “Come on, Moni. I would never question that you—“

  She stopped him cold with her eyes.

  “Yeah, you could hear my thoughts. Sorry.”

  “Believe me, it would be easier if I didn’t. Sometimes you don’t want to know what people really think of you. You have no idea how many perverts are out there.”

  “All guys have pervy thoughts when they see a hottie like you.”

  She tried giggling, but not a sound came out of her disabled voice box. The effort only tightened her stomach more.

  “You okay?” Aaron asked as she clenched her teeth in a groaning motion. She nodded, but even that hurt as the glands in her neck swelled. “Damn, you don’t look right. I should examine you.”

  “Don’t touch me.” He shuddered at her response, so she rephrased it. She wished he could touch her, and she regretted not getting closer to him before they turned her into this. She placed her hand atop his palm, a safe level of contact based on her experience with the girl. “The last thing I want is to infect you.” She quickly withdrew it.

  “Moni, your body’s changed and neither of us understands how. I mean, we’re driving away leaving everything behind, but running can’t solve a problem that lies inside you. Until I learn what those things have done to you, I can’t help you get rid of them.”

  Her blood pressure climbed to a point that felt like having a mile of ocean atop her. Aaron wanted the visitors inside her dead. He would deny them their new habitat, the rebirth of their species. They demanded that Moni reach out and grab the wheel, then pull hard.

  A thousand voices boomed in her head, “Lose this dead weight!”

  She warned them to stop or they’d die along with her body. The pressure eased in her bloodstream, but not in her gut. Her stomach groaned like she hadn’t eaten in weeks. It wasn’t normal food she craved.

  “There’s no curing me. Aaron, I’d give anything to be human again, to start over, me and you.”

  This time she melted him with the desperation in her eyes. Aaron turned his gaze back to the road and kept it there. She felt his agony, finally meeting a woman he cared about so much, but out of all the people in the world, she’s the one who’s contaminated, off limits to all the living. He wanted to fix her for more reasons than one.

  “You can’t stay like this forever. If I get you into a lab, I can learn at least how to keep you alive. I may not be the best marine biology student in my class, or whatever’s left of it, but I know illness when I see it. You’re not well, Moni.”

  Looking into the vanity mirror, Moni gasped. She’d never been so pale. If not for her nose and cheekbones, she could have been mistaken for a full-blooded white woman, instead of half black and white. It wasn’t just a stomach ache. Her body lagged on weak and dehydrated, though she had breakfast and stopped for a snack at a gas station. Then she understood. She hadn’t fed them.

  “Pull off at the next exit. Look for a secluded spot with cover in the woods.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Aaron took an exit in a sparsely populated area and rounded a few turns until he found a road that led into the woods. Moni listened to Aaron’s thoughts to distract herself from the task at hand. He recognized a chestnut oak tree and the shortleaf pine trees. The heat practically made the ground smolder. With the hybrid gliding on under quiet battery power, they heard the birds chirping and a chorus of insects buzzing, and no sounds from civilization.

  “Stop here.”

  “Oh Moni, you know it’s not a good time for a make out session,” Aaron said with a bittersweet grin.

  Staring at his lips, she wondered what it’d be like to lean in and kiss him and stroke his wavy blond hair. Could she do it without getting her infected saliva on him? As much as she longed for it, it wasn’t worth the risk.

  Moni would rather daydream about forbidden kisses than think about what she was about to wrap her lips around.

  Moni got out and grabbed the gas can from the trunk. They had filled it with two gallons in case the car’s tank ran dry in the middle of nowhere. Moni stepped through the underbrush into the woods. She didn’t ask Aaron to follow. He did anyway. She’d rather him not see this, but she couldn’t restrain their needs any longer.

  Moni stopped when they were out of view of the road. She fell to a knee, her jeans getting smudged by leaves and dirt. The gas can felt so heavy. She took the cap off. Ugh, the fumes smelt horrible. Her head involuntarily jerked back.

  I can’t do this. It’ll kill me.

  Her stomach seized up like a sponge being twisted by two hands. The pressure behind her eyes swelled so much she feared her eyeballs might pop out of their sockets. They left her little choice.

  “Moni, what are you—Oh crap!”

  She poured gas down her mouth. It burned her throat so badly that she had to bite down hard on the nozzle to keep from spitting it out. Her stomach heaved, trying to expel the slick liquid, but it caught in her esophagus and her body refused to let it go. The fumes ran up her nose, setting her sinuses ablaze and shocking her lungs. The smell made her light headed. Her throat eased and the heavy fuel dropped into the bottom of her stomach. Instantly, a million tiny pinheads swarmed. The gasoline in her system attracted the alien nanotechnology inside her like sharks to bloody meat.

  She remembered what Aaron and his professor had discovered, that the biological nanotech produced bacteria similar to thiobacillus, which thrived on iron, sulfur and carbon dioxide. These were the base elements that the aliens desired for their species. Gasoline had the latter two. Now they had their feast.

  The gas can a quarter empty, Moni started gagging. She ripped the nozzle out of her mouth. Immediately, she regretted what she’d done. Her hunger pains were downright pleasant compared to the gut full of gasoline. It heated up like a coal pit as the bacteria-infused nanotech began cooking the gasoline to release the elements they craved. But what would be left over? Moni had seen people die from simply inhaling gas fumes. Had they really changed her body so much that she could survive this, or had she been the one lured into the woods to her death?

  “You gotta p
uke it out! Put your fingers down your throat,” Aaron cried as he approached her. Moni didn’t realize that she’d fallen on her side until she saw him kneeling above her. He shook her, but she kept her hands clenched around her revolting belly. Aaron reached for her mouth with his fingers.

  “Don’t. That’s what they want, to kill me and infect you so they can wipe out your mind.”

  “I’m not going to stand here and watch you die.”

  Before she could reply, she heard rustling in the bushes. A man in a camouflage hunting jacket sprang out and hoisted a rifle at them.

  “What you drug addicts doing in my woods?”

  4

  Moni tried rolling from her side onto her knees so she could stand up and face the gunman, but curling into a ball put unbearable pressure on her gasoline-bloated stomach. She collapsed onto her back and craned her neck to stare up at him. Appearing in his mid-50s with a graying brown beard and wearing camouflage from his hat to his pants, the man glared at her with blue eyes of disdain. He had the tanned, leathery skin of a man who spent more time outdoors than under the soft indoor lights. She had tackled all kinds of rodeo boys while making arrests in Brevard County, but not one with a rifle pointed at her face.

  “What she be, a meth head?” the man asked Aaron in Cajun drawl. “Or you out here ‘shrooming? Looking for the magic mushrooms in my woods?”

  “Your woods?” Aaron asked as he knelt over Moni. His hands trembled as they hoisted her head out of the leaves. “I didn’t realize that…”

  “Hell yeah, these my woods.” He swept the aim of his rifle on Aaron’s chest. “My family owns these woods back generations. I’m sick of drug addicts coming here, getting high, having sex…” He glanced at the prone Moni. She detected his disgusting thought about her. Then he noticed the gas canister. “And you brought that? You fix’n to burn down my woods?”

  “Shit.” Aaron stared at the canister in disbelief. “Listen man, we didn’t come here to start a fire or to do drugs. My girlfriend is sick. She needs urgent medical care.”

  “So you take her in the woods, no hospital? Come on, son, what you figure me for?” He jabbed the barrel of the rifle into Aaron’s chest, knocking him off balance. “Stand up and show me your hands. Both of you.”

  Aaron looked down at Moni. She nodded, so he stood up and raised his hands. Moni rolled onto her knees with little problem this time and leaned back into a kneeling position, but could go no further. The liquids in her stomach swirled like a washing machine rocking on its sides. The man grew a big smile as he looked at her and thought of what he’d like this exotic young woman to do on her knees. Moni would prefer the gasoline nozzle.

  “This guy’s a freak. We better leave,” Moni projected into Aaron’s head.

  “I’m sorry, okay. We screwed up by coming here,” Aaron said. “Let’s just walk away and forget about it.”

  Moni didn’t detect the gunman’s thoughts dwelling on recognizing her face from the wanted alerts, but she doubted he’d forget her next time he saw her mug splashed on the news.

  “Stay right where you are. I’m calling the police. You getting made an example of.” Moni’s heart jumped. He didn’t reach for his cell phone. After listening to Aaron pleading with him, Moni knew what was coming next. “Of course, if you wait in the car 20 minutes and leave me to your girl, I reckon I might let this slide.”

  What a saint. Moni had a feeling he’d done this before with girls who passed out drunk. Her muscles tensing, she would have punched a hole in his ribcage if that didn’t mean a bullet through Aaron’s chest in the same instant. That’s if she could actually get to her feet.

  She tried the mental games first by projecting a thought into the man’s head in his own voice: “This chick probably has STDs and AIDs from all the sex and needles. I better let them both go.”

  She had something a hell of a lot worse than an STD and if he got infected, she shuddered to think what the aliens would do with him.

  He looked confused for a few seconds. Then she picked up his follow-up thoughts: Fuck it. I’m horny. I should just shoot that dipshit and get on with this.

  The gunman eyed Aaron with the rifle a few feet from his chest. He had made up his mind. Moni had no more time to warn him. The aching gradually faded from her gut. A furnace of energy started forming, pumping the heat through her blood vessels. She could finally move, but not faster than a bullet. But her thoughts could.

  She projected into his head: “Damn, this cartridge is out of ammo. Where’s my spare?”

  The moment he took his finger off the trigger searching for more ammo in his jacket, Moni uncoiled from her kneeling position and sprang at him faster than the eye could blink. She swatted the rifle out of his hands. The machines buzzed through her bloodstream, plugging her muscles into wires fed from a chemical power plant within her body. She was strong enough to crush his skull with one swing, but should she? Hadn’t she caused enough death?

  While she hesitated for a second, the man clawed at her neck with one hand and reached for the hunting knife on his hip with the other. If he killed her, Moni’s mind would no longer contain the infection within her body. They would escape to find the closest host available. Gazing at the old man’s scruffy face, she could imagine how he’d be even worse under their control. Aaron shoved him away from her. He still drew the blade, but aimed at Aaron. No he wouldn’t. Moni lunged forward with a punch for his jaw – holding back to half strength. The Cajun dropped all limp-legged as if he’d been shot.

  Aaron stood there awed by her power.

  “Check his pulse. I shouldn’t touch him again.”

  “Forget him. Let’s go!”

  “I can’t have another death on my hands. Besides, do you want them investigating a murder and tracing it back to us?”

  With a groan, Aaron checked on the man. He was alive and his neck wasn’t shattered, both of which wouldn’t have been the case if Moni had hit him full strength.

  “Did I cut him anywhere? Anyplace an infection could have gotten through?”

  “I don’t see any—Moni, your neck.” His eyes widened. “There’s a long scratch, like from a fingernail. He’s probably got your skin under there. It’s…purple.”

  Moni dabbed her finger against her neck and came away with a smudge of purple, the blood of their species.

  “He swiped at my neck with his left hand. Okay, hold up his left pointer and middle fingers. You may want to shut your eyes.”

  Aaron listened to her on the first task but not on the second, which he soon regretted. Moni clamped the Cajun’s fingernails between her nails and peeled them clean off. Blood squirted from the roots of his fingers and down his irritated, pink nail beds. Moni backed off so she didn’t get doused. She pocketed his nails, with her deadly skin flakes in them, for burning later.

  “Whoa, hurl,” Aaron said. “How do you know he’s still not infected?”

  “When you have microscopic alien robots radically overhauling your body, you don’t doze so peacefully. Now let’s go before he comes to. This time, I drive. You look out the window for a place that sells iron supplements.”

    

  They found a drugstore in a small town that had ferrous sulfate tablets, each containing 361 percent of the normal daily iron intake. Aaron bought two bottles and delivered them to Moni in the car, where she waited with a scarf around her neck while the scratch healed. She knew about facial recognition technology and didn’t want to take any chances in front of the store’s camera. Besides, her shirt still reeked of gasoline, and the creatures inside her were the only ones who found that aroma enticing.

  “Two bottles? That should last me a day or two.”

  “Five-hundred iron pills in two days? Your body can’t absorb that much. Even if it could, what are you trying to do, become the Terminator?”

  A soulless robot with a single-minded mission, that’s exactly what the metal beasties inside her were. As much as she loathed feeding them, she had little choice.
She wondered whether she could starve them to death without killing herself first, but that was a game of chicken she couldn’t risk. Some tragedies she could still avoid.

  She turned on the car and grabbed the shift knob, then stopped. “Wait. I can’t down these pills without a drink. Aaron, please get me a gallon.”

  “Of water or gasoline?”

  “I’ll go with water this time. That gas doesn’t go down so smooth.”

  For a second, he glared at her like she came from another planet. Of course he did. Why would a hunky young grad student want a fugitive ex-cop who shares the diet of a monster truck? Yet, the revulsion in his eyes quickly faded, replaced by fondness. “I just hope you’re a low emission vehicle, otherwise I’ll need some air freshener.” He smirked. “Be right back.”

  Aaron left the car for another drug store run. Moni locked the doors and pulled away.

  “You have enough money in your wallet for a bus ticket to New Orleans, and then back to Florida,” she projected into his head from 20 feet away.

  He screamed in the rearview mirror, but she couldn’t hear him, so she read his thoughts. Not like this. At least put down your window and let me say goodbye. Aaron approached her driver’s side window. She rolled it down halfway, because he might dive through otherwise.

  “How are you going to survive this trip by yourself? You can’t stay in the car the whole time. Someone could recognize you. If they ask questions, you can’t even talk.”

  “I understand the challenges, but what happened in the woods made it clear that it’s my responsibility. I don’t want to get you killed. I’ve already done so many things I regret, terrible errors in judgment that I’ll have to live with as long as this curse keeps me alive. I don’t want to add your death to that list.”

  “I’m not going to die Moni. Neither of us will as long as we stick together.”

  “I’m touched that you place your trust in me. You shouldn’t.”

  Aaron bit his lips and shook his head. He wiped his nose as his eyes moistened. Finally, he reached into the car. His palm caressed Moni’s cheek. She closed her eyes as she felt his moist skin, imaging how it would feel wrapped around her body. She longed to turn and kiss his hand, but such love would only drench him in her poison. Moni remembered the first time she touched Mariella after the girl made her aware that the aliens were inside her, and how that heightened their mental communication. She engaged Aaron with her mind, using the contact of their flesh to amplify the signal.