Infected (21 page)

cold no kill cold cold

What he saw stopped him instantly. A low hiss leaked from his mouth like air from a punctured tire.

“How’s that for a prize in your Cracker Jacks?”

He stared at the thing that had made him itch, made him tear into himself like a wild animal in a trap—at what was undoubtedly killing him. Blood pooled and flowed around a dark blue triangular lump. Perry wiped away the pulsating blood to get a better look.

It was deep blue, shiny, although maybe that was from the wetness of the blood rather than its true color. The triangle’s surface wasn’t smooth, but gnarled, twisted…malignant, like tree roots massed together and exposed to the soil surface, or like the texture of steel cable without the orderly lines.

Sobriety suddenly swam its way to the surface, spurred on by a horror-fueled fight-or-flight response. This was a whole ’nother ball game from the rashes, a completely different league than the thick orange blisters. His body hadn’t made this thing,
couldn’t
have—where the hell had it come from?

Perry snarled. The growling voice of a rabid animal escaped his throat. He not-so-gently slid the fork under the bloody blue triangle. The metal tines scraped against his own raw flesh. He’d never felt pain so

no feel no kill no kill

pure, so dense, so all-encompassing, but he ignored it completely, focusing instead on the abomination buried in his shin.

Play through the pain.

He felt the tines of the fork meet the slightly giving resistance of the triangle’s stem. He gently fished around until the fork slid all the way through, its red-smeared prongs poking their little heads out from underneath the triangle’s other side.

The blood-covered table felt cold and sticky under his calf. Perry raised the fork. The triangle seemed to lift easily. The stem itself, however, was another affair, far more solid and firm than before. It would take strength to pull this one out.

Sweat poured from his face as pain sheared through his leg. It was slammingly intense, but he held it in check with the promise of purging this abomination from his body. Perry yanked up hard on the

no kill no kill

fork, but the stem held firm. Blood spilled anew from the leg, splashing into the puddle that blazed red against the white linoleum floor.

His head lolled to the right. Spots appeared before his eyes. He scrunched his eyes shut and shook his head, blinking fast as his equilibrium and vision returned. He’d almost passed out. Had he lost that much blood? His head started to spin—he didn’t know if it was from the Wild Turkey or blood loss. He felt control slipping away.

please no no no

no no no no

He jammed the fork in deeper, allowing more of the tines to poke through the other side, enough for him to get a decent hold with his free hand. He held the fork as if it were a curling bar and he was ripping off a few quick reps. His meaty biceps twitched in anticipation. He took a breath and

NO NO NO NO NO NO

NO NO NO NO

yanked.

He heard a ripping sound and felt a blast of searing nuclear fire rage through his leg. Something in the stem snapped. Perry’s momentum carried him backward over his chair and spilled him onto the floor.

Blood had trickled before—now it gushed, this time from the
back
of the leg. A wave of gray washed across his eyes.

Have to stop the bleeding. I’m not gonna die on the kitchen floor…

He pulled off his T-shirt and leaned forward, ass and legs spreading blood all across the linoleum. Perry wrapped the shirt around his gushing calf, tied a granny knot, then yanked it tight with all his strength. His short scream filled the small apartment.

He rolled to his back, body tightly tense with agony, the gray washing over him yet again. He fell limp.

His chest moved in regular breaths as he lay on the blood-smeared floor.

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN

The five remaining organisms conducted a “poll” of sorts. Following deeply ingrained instructions, they measured densities of thyroxine and triiodothyronine, hormones that stimulate the metabolic rate. Both hormones are produced by the thyroid gland, which is located in the neck region of all vertebrates. By measuring the densities of these chemicals in the bloodstream, the five organisms detected which of their number was closest to the neck.

Or, more accurately, which was closest to the brain.

The triangle on the host’s back, the one on the spine, just below the shoulder blades, came out the winner. This new discovery stimulated additional specialized cell development from that triangle—like a stealthy snake approaching an unknowing victim, a new tendril slowly grew along the spinal column toward the brain.

Once there, the tendril split into hundreds of long strands, each microscopically thin. The tendrils sought out the brain’s convergence zones. These zones act like mental switching stations, providing access to information and linking that information to other relevant data. The tendrils sought out specific areas: the thalamus, the amygdala, the caudate nucleus, the hypothalamus, the hippocampus, the septum, and particular areas of the cerebral cortex. The tendrils’ growth was very specific, very directed.

Sentience was limited but progressing—they had only just begun to think, to be aware of themselves. Words had floated about their environment, and they had picked up a few, but with the growth into the brain they would learn more and learn them quickly.

They had tried to stop the host, but their messages were weak. They simply didn’t have enough information to communicate properly. That was changing; soon they would be strong enough to
make
him listen.

WAKE UP WE HUNGRY

wake up we hungry

Waking up on a linoleum floor was getting to be an annoying habit. His head hurt again. This time, however, he immediately identified the pain as a hangover.

The kitchen lights glared in his eyes. He saw flies behind the clear plastic that sat in front of the fluorescent lights. The bugs had flown up there, looking to do whatever it is that bugs want to do with lights, then they got cooked, burned to a crispity-crunchity finish.

His leg ached. His stomach grumbled. Loudly. First thing in his mind (besides the bugs) was the fact that he hadn’t really eaten anything in three days. Depending, of course, on how long he’d been out
this
time. No sunlight filtered in from the living room, so obviously it was sometime in the evening.

Perry looked down at his leg. The bleeding had stopped. The shirt had gone from athletic gray to a sickly dried brown, a tie-dyed T-shirt suitable for Marilyn Manson.

Dried blood smears coated the linoleum floor, blackish brown against the shiny white. It looked as if a three-year-old had come in from playing in the rain, covered in puddle mud, then rolled on the floor.

His leg hurt with the dull, throbbing, pulsating pain of a recent wound struggling to heal. There was no sign of the Big Six acting up; from those areas he felt no itching, no pain. That didn’t make Perry feel any better; there was no telling what the little bastards were up to now.

“Big Six?” A rather unhealthy smile tickled the corners of Perry’s mouth. “That’s not quite right. I got another one. You’re not the Big Six anymore—now you’re the Starting Five.”

He wanted to find the fork, the one he’d used to pull the creature from his body. He wanted to see what the blue thing looked like when it wasn’t latched on to his leg like a suckling kangaroo imbedded in the pouch of its mother.

His leg not only hurt like a bitch, but felt funny in a way he couldn’t quite identify. What had the Triangle done on the way out?

Perry rolled to his stomach and struggled to rise without putting weight on his bad leg. He hopped up on his good leg and leaned on the counter, then scanned the floor for the fork. It had slid against the refrigerator.

He took one careful hop, leaned on the other counter, then stooped to pick up the fork.

“I hope it hurt, you fucker,” Perry said quietly as he examined his grisly trophy.

The Triangle looked like flaky, dried-up black seaweed wrapped around the fork in a permanent death embrace. He could barely make out the once-triangular shape, as it was now a lifeless hunk of crap without form or function.

But it wasn’t the body that held his rapt attention or made his jaw hang open with astonishment and an additional serving of fear. It wasn’t the body at all.

The creature’s tail was just as dry, light and stiff as the body, but the very end was something totally unexpected. Hooked, bony protrusions stuck out of the end like little claws or teeth. Perry gingerly touched one—sharp as a knife. As sharp as the butcher’s knife he’d used to cut into his own leg like some narcissistic cannibal. Some of the claws hooked inward; these showed visible breaks and cracks. They must have helped hold the tail to the shinbones. Five of the claws, however, pointed outward or hooked wickedly upward, toward the now-dried head.

“But how would that help hold on to anything?” Perry murmured.

“What the hell is this?”

His lip curled in revulsion as their purpose became suddenly clear. The outwardly curved hooks couldn’t help hold the tail in place—they could only cut and slash if the creature were pulled from its human burrow.

That’s why his leg had bled all over, because he’d dragged five of the quarter-inch, razor-sharp claws through the meat of his calf and out his shin.

They were a defense mechanism. Intended to hurt Perry if he tried to remove the Triangle. Now that he knew what was buried in his body, the claws served as

a warning

a warning of what would happen if he tried to remove any more. He’d been lucky with the leg—if one of these wicked claws had cut through an artery, it would have killed him.

no try it again

Perry wondered if he should try it again, try to get the rest of them out. But brute force obviously wasn’t the way to…to…

Perry blinked a few times. His mind dry-fired, stayed blank as he tried to comprehend what had just happened.

He’d clearly heard a voice. Was he going loopy? His mind filled with vague memories of his homespun surgery and that same voice echoing through his drunken head. Great. On top of dying, now he was developing a split personality. He was going loopy. Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Insane in the membrane.

“I’m crazy. That’s it. I’m apeshit crazy. That’s the only answer.”

you no crazy we no

think so

That one stopped Perry cold. He managed a parched swallow and ignored an untimely rumble from his underpaid belly.

The voice had said, “we no think so.”

We.

As in more than one.

As in…

As in the Starting Five.

Perry was beyond speechless—he was thoughtless.

“I’ll be a sonofabitch,” Perry whispered.

sonofabitch

the voice echoed, a voice he heard as clear as day, although his ears didn’t pick up a thing. He could
hear
the voice in his head—no vocal characteristics or tone, just words.

sonofabitch feed us

It was them. The Starting Five. They were talking in his head. Perry leaned heavily against the counter, in danger of falling to the floor as if struck by a physical blow. His rashes had turned into triangles, and now they were talking to him. Should he answer them?

Hello,
Perry thought—no response. He tried concentrating, focusing.
HELLO
, he thought, as hard as he could. Still no response.

feed us we hungry

“Feed you?”

A response slammed through his head like the roar of a Rose Bowl crowd on New Year’s Day.

yes yes yes feed us

we hungry

They’d answered him. Perry squinted his eyes and “thought” as loudly as he could.
Why’d you answer me that time?
He waited, but again heard no response.
Answer me!

His stomach grumbled loudly, the sound bordering on an internal roar. Despite the shock of hearing voices in his head, he couldn’t deny the gnawing feeling in his gut.

“I’m pretty hungry myself,” Perry whispered.

so are we feed us

we hungry

His head lifted with final understanding. “Can you hear me?”

yes we hear you

“You can talk into my head, but you can’t hear my thoughts?”

we send words through your nerves your nerves no send words back are you hungry now

What escaped Perry’s mouth was somewhere between a laugh and a cry and a stutter. A sick, twisted bark of despair, a laugh that may have once echoed through Andersonville, Buchenwald or any of history’s dark places where human beings give up all hope.