by Alan Ryker
“I know, and I’ll get her out of there again, and for good. But you have to give me time. If worse comes to worst, I only have to get her out right before the county comes and demolishes the place. That will be much easier than trying to restrain her for the next who-knows-how-long.”
Kathy shook her head slowly. Some of her anger was fading, but she seemed resolute in wanting to take care of the situation right then. “This just doesn’t make any sense, Peter.”
And he knew it didn’t exactly make sense, but Pete also knew he had her halfway there, and so he played his final card. “Kathy, people are already talking about this. In town, everyone stared at me. They’ll already talk about this for the rest of their boring lives. But this is nothing compared to what it’ll be like if the cops drag my mother kicking and screaming out of her house, or if—God forbid—she takes a shot at one of them. We might as well sell everything and move away if that happens.”
That hit her. Her eyes unfocused as her mind turned inward, and Pete knew she was imagining the repercussions.
“Junior already has a hard time in school,” she said.
“Let me handle it. She can simmer down for a while and then I’ll go talk to her. And even if she doesn’t know it yet, she has to have gotten used to a nice, clean house and spending time with family.”
Although she slowly shook her head no, Kathy said, “Okay. But if she doesn’t agree, something drastic is going to have to happen. So you can’t deal with her like you usually do.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean. She’s a tiny, half-senile old woman. You’re a grown man with her best interest at heart. Act like it.”
Pete stared at her a moment then silently left for his workshop.
CHAPTER 12
Bryce Hardin was a PhD student and graduate teacher in the entomology program at Kansas State University. He’d been one of the first to examine the larvae collected by some inspector at a hoarder’s house southwest of Wichita. Unfortunately, the larvae were extremely delicate and almost all had died in transportation, first to an exterminator’s shop, then to the university.
While the larvae were interesting, they couldn’t be certain that it was indeed a new insect, and after considering the trouble and danger of trying to collect more specimens from the house—which the inspector had described as a biohazard on the brink of collapse—the department had decided not to pursue the matter further.
At least until that idiot Jason Corner had handled the grubs with his bare hands.
Jason was this hippie-nature dipshit. He’d at least lost the white-boy dreads that had frizzed out from his head while he worked towards his BA, but he still had the attitude. He still walked around bopping his head to an inaudible reggae band and slapping his palms on invisible bongos. He was a vegan with a love for all creatures that seemed mostly to manifest whenever a pretty girl was around. He’d let any insect crawl all over him, and treat it as tenderly as if it were his own child.
And somehow, these strange, gullible women fell for it, and Jason had pussy thrown at him from all directions. As an academic he was mediocre at best, but he was up to his neck in the pink. Bryce was the best researcher in the department and he couldn’t get a date to save his life, which made no sense. He’d already worked on studies that had been published in journals, for God’s sake.
But Jason’s streak of good luck ran out with those red larvae. He handled them for a while, treating them as equals under Jah or whatever stupid shit he believed or pretended to believe, and then flipped the fuck out. Got violent and incoherent. Started slicing at forearms with a dissection scalpel and then trying to press the dead grubs into the wounds.
Obviously, interest in the previously dismissed larvae reignited throughout the entire biology department. They were found to be covered in secretions of testosterone, growth hormone and powerful hallucinogens.
Bryce had volunteered to collect new specimens, and as one of the most trusted students in the program, he was allowed. He would play an instrumental part in the discovery of what would likely turn out to be one of the strangest insects ever found.
Then he found himself alone, tied up and buried inside of a stinking heap of trash, with no idea how he’d gotten there. At first, the fear had been like nothing he’d ever experienced. Total darkness. Pain. Overwhelming stench. The only sounds that of small creatures scurrying over and under whatever he was buried in. But it didn’t take long before a pure calm took hold of him. Then the heap became comfortable, cozy even, and he snuggled up as best he could with his hands and feet restrained and dozed.
In the department, there had been early speculation as to the nature of the larvae’s secretions. After witnessing Jason’s reaction to touching them, some thought that it was likely a defense mechanism. It obviously didn’t work for the individual, as the manner of applying the mechanism seemed to be getting eaten, but after eating a few of the larvae, a predator would probably go insane. That indicated a social insect, a species for which the survival of the colony was more important than the survival of the individual. Some sort of a superorganism. But that explanation accounted only for the hallucinogens, not the hormones.
Now Bryce understood the nature of the secretions. The insects did create a superorganism, and more than that, they did so symbiotically, inside a host.
Bryce didn’t know how long he’d been in the heap, slipping in and out of consciousness, before his fellow superorganism arrived. It awakened him as it skipped lightly over what he’d come to think of as his cocoon. A man followed soon after, one who hadn’t been colonized, and who called the other “Mom”. Bryce almost cried out, but didn’t. He’d had it in his head that he wanted to escape as soon as he could, but when the moment came, panic gripped his heart at the thought of leaving his nest, his cocoon, so he remained silent.
He understood now, why the larvae secreted hormones. As they spread throughout his veins, he felt himself growing stronger. They secreted other substances, too, ones that the entomologists hadn’t detected. Either dopamine or something that stimulated its release. Something that made him feel good. He understood that he was being manipulated, and he didn’t care. And he knew the hallucinogens had something to do with not caring, and he didn’t care.
He let the man leave, and didn’t alert the other to his consciousness, because he was still metamorphosing in his cocoon. He would emerge soon, stronger, better, and a colony for something even more important than himself. Symbiosis. Once he emerged, as they continued to improve him, he would provide for them.
CHAPTER 13
Jenny sat in her pickup outside of her house and fixed her makeup. Chris had smeared it halfway off her face in their make-out session after the football game. He was always a sloppy kisser. The big lips she found so sensual in appearance spread saliva from her nose to her chin. And he’d been especially enthusiastic in his devouring of her face after making two touchdowns that evening.
He’d been especially enthusiastic in his attempts to get his hands in her panties, too. She’d been less enthusiastic than usual in rebuffing him. Every time, she gave in a little more, and the next time that new territory became the starting point. And he was so handsome and athletic.
But he talked. She should dump him and gossip first about how he never made it anywhere with her. Get her side established as the truth early. Have the whole school talking about his case of blue balls before he even knew they were over.
Her makeup looked good, but her cheeks were still flushed, her lips still swollen and pouty. Her mom could always tell, and always made her feel like a slut.
So maybe she should just be a slut if she were going to be treated like one regardless.
She made a kissy face to the rearview then rolled her eyes at herself.
Right before she shut the truck door, Jenny remembered her backpack and leaned in for it, trying to avoid getting the mud of the runner on her legs. She grunted as she heaved the pack across the seat an
d onto her shoulder. She’d forgotten how much stupid homework she still had to do.
As she walked across from the carport to the front door, she heard something. The crunch of gravel, and not just under her own feet. She turned and saw something strange just outside the circle of light cast by the post lamp beside the carport, something pale that leapt back when she turned toward it, then hesitated, ticking forward and back in the darkness.
She didn’t know what it was, but she knew it wasn’t good.
Jenny screamed, dropped her heavy backpack and ran.
She heard the scrape of gravel once, near where she’d seen the thing, then again, far too close, and then the air left her lungs in a whoosh as it smashed into her back and she landed face down and slid across jagged bits of stone.
Jenny was still conscious as it grabbed one of her ankles and started running into the night, dragging her behind it.
But she wasn’t conscious for long.
CHAPTER 14
Anna dragged the girl through the front door, over the mounds of her hoard and into the kitchen. Her initial impulse was to then rip at her, but when she looked at the girl, only her panties had survived the dragging, and her body was covered with wounds front and back. She had more torn flesh than not.
Anna gently coated her with handfuls of filth and grubs.
She began to bind her limbs, but stopped and cocked her head when she heard movement and a muffled voice.
“He’s ready,” Victor said.
Anna crawled to the pile in which she’d buried the spaceman and carefully uncovered him. He lay there like a content infant in a crib, now still, silent, only watching.
She could smell that it was time to set him free, and she snipped through the yarn she’d knotted around his wrists.
He continued to watch her as he untied his own ankles. But not with malevolence. His face was blank.
He stood and stretched his tall, lanky body. He rubbed his bony wrists. Then he leapt down the pile and into the kitchen.
He crouched beside the girl and felt at her torn skin.
“You hurt her too badly. You should have carried her.”
He looked at the back of her head, gently touching it.
“I heard her head banging the steps. She could die if her brain swells before our friends have a chance to work.” He knelt down. “See, these little guys don’t know any better. They’ll go into her and try to fix her, but if she dies, they die, too. And we don’t want that.”
Anna felt confused by his words, and angry at being told what to do. Before she could kill him, Victor grabbed her arm. She turned to look at his angelic face as he said, “He’s right. We need to be more careful. For their sake.”
So Anna nodded, and said only, “Tie her up. Bury her,” before heading back out into the night.
CHAPTER 15
John sat in his recliner watching a ball game on ESPN. He was so happy to be retired in an era where he could find a ball game on the television almost any time, day or night. It even made it okay that his lousy kids never came to visit him.
He had a big television and a good cable package. Those were his only luxuries, and he was happy with them. Through his thick glasses it was sometimes hard to make out exactly what was going on, but he cranked the volume and even as bad as his hearing was he could make out the announcers’ every word. He didn’t know what he’d do if he had close neighbors. But he’d never had to worry about that. One of the great advantages of country life.
A commercial break started, and a woman in a bikini on a hot, sunny beach poured a can of pop over a glass of ice. The glass beaded with sweat to match the woman’s, and she took a large gulp, her throat pulsing before she smacked her full lips in satisfaction.
John realized that he really wanted a cold pop.
He lowered the footrest, then grabbed his cane and began the slow process of standing up from a chair he’d been sitting in for too long. Joints all along his body creaked and groaned. When fully upright, he decided he should probably take a piss too, while he was up. It was best to consolidate these things that dragged him from his comfortable spot in front of the television.
He turned toward the hallway, and froze in surprise.
At first he thought his bad vision was playing a trick on him. It did that sometimes, causing him to glimpse things that weren’t there. The doctor explained that his brain tried to make up for his eyes, filling in the gaps, making educated guesses. He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again.
A woman stood there, watching him.
“Anna Grish?”
He thought back to the scene in the café. Clara had really given it to him over pestering Pete like that, but he hadn’t meant any harm. Heck, he was on Pete and Anna’s side. But John couldn’t deny that Pete had left in a hurry, and he had probably embarrassed him. Young people were so sensitive these days.
Had Anna come to give him a talking to? But she shouldn’t have been in his house. And at that time of night…
“What are you doing here? Is this about your boy?”
“My boy?” Her voice was thin and raspy. Her eyes opened wide in anger. She stared at the empty space beside her, then nodded and looked back at John. Her stringy white hair stood frizzed out, and she looked hog-filthy in her housedress. Then her smell hit him.
Suddenly very frightened, John said, “I’m sorry for upsetting him the other day. I didn’t mean anything. In fact, I think the dern government needs to…”
He trailed off as she began to approach him with strange deliberateness. When she stood nose to nose with him (he’d been taller than her once, before he’d gotten so crooked), he again said, “Anna?”
She crouched down, pressed her shoulder into his stomach, picked him up, and started into the kitchen.
At first, John remained frozen in confusion and fright, wondering both how and why this little old woman was toting him about like a sack of feed. He was jerked back into motion when he saw that she was headed for the open back door.
John was being kidnapped.
He suddenly went straight as a board. This didn’t loosen Anna’s grip in the slightest, though he balanced across only her narrow right shoulder. He kicked his legs, seemingly futilely until she dropped him onto the vinyl floor, sending lightning bolts of pain through his creaky bones.
Anna punched him in the stomach. Then again.
“I tried,” she said. John didn’t understand.
The air left his body, and he stayed limp as she hoisted him up over her shoulder again and ran into the night.
* * *
Don sat in his den watching the news. In the family room, his wife and kids watched MTV. He thought she must be insane for being able to tolerate that crap. No wonder America was losing more ground to the Asians every day. Joe and Lizzie should be watching the news, learning about real life instead of the glamorous world of teenage pregnancy. They thought the real world was a big house where dumbasses drank themselves even dumber as cameras fawned over their every move. They’d learn otherwise very soon. Yes they would. The real real world would teach that lesson without mercy.
He was already on edge when the dog started barking outside. He turned up the television. Almost in response, the dog barked even louder.
“What the hell is Chuck making so much noise about?” he shouted.
He thought he heard Joe say, “I don’t know,” using no hard consonants: ah-un-oh. Amanda, his wife, was more articulate, though no more helpful. “How would we know?”
She didn’t make a move to check. He would have seen her walk past his doorway.
The dog barked, and barked, and still no one went to see what the fuss was about. Don muttered to himself and stood. He was sore from standing on concrete, bent under the hoods of cars. “I spend all damn day on my feet and when I get home you’d think—”
A loud yipe cut his grumblings short. The dog went silent. He considered sitting back down, problem solved, but grabbed his shotgun instead.
Now Amanda and the kids were interested. They tried to squint through their own reflections in the window.
“What was that?” Don asked.
“The dog,” Lizzie said. Fourteen and dumb as a stump. At least she was pretty enough she’d be off his hands soon.
“I figured that much,” Don said as he flipped on the porch light and opened the door. He stood out on the stoop, realizing that the light was blinding him more than it was helping him see. He almost stepped back inside to flip it off when he saw a man-shaped shadow stride resolutely out of the deeper shadows.
“Hold it right there,” Don said. He pulled the shotgun against his shoulder, but didn’t yet point it at the man.
The man didn’t hold it, but performed a movement that was impossible to interpret until the carcass of Chuck, their big German Shepherd, slammed into Don’s chest, knocking him back into the house on his ass, and knocking the shotgun from his outstretched hand as it hit the doorway.
“Holy shit,” he said as he scooted backward out from beneath the furry, bloody body. The kids began screaming.
Don scrambled to shut the door, but it was too late. A thin man stood in the doorway, wearing only a stained pair of briefs. Filth covered his body from his hairline to his toes, and he stank incredibly.
“Get the hell—” Don bellowed as the man kicked him in the face.
* * *
A headache dragged Don unwillingly back to consciousness. His head banged repeatedly against metal. He vomited then tried to shake the cotton from his head. He went to push himself up, found that he couldn’t even start, and realized his hands and feet were hogtied behind him. He and his family were bouncing down a gravel road in the back of a pickup truck. The back of his own pickup truck.
