To forget everything.
To leave behind the worries crowding her mind.
She put her hand behind his neck and pulled him closer.
His lips found her mouth and they kissed. At once, her mind went back to her first ever kiss. It had been with Charlie, after the school’s dance. She remembered it clearly. It was both passionate and klutzy, beautiful yet nerve-racking. But it wasn’t all about the kiss. It was about how she’d felt. About that moment when she knew, with absolute certainty, that he was the right one.
The kiss lingered on. She could feel Asher’s lips on her own, the press of his mouth against her’s.
Yet…
She pulled back and opened her eyes. He was still facing her but his features were etched in doubt, as if, he too, had felt something wrong; that the kiss, somehow, had felt different than what he expected.
“You,” he said, eyes growing wide with disbelief. “You’re one of them.”
She took a step backward, aware that his hands had left her waist. His stare changed to an accusatory one as she continued to back away from him.
“You’re one of them,” he repeated, with a twitch of disgust on his lips.
“No, I, no… It’s you!” she stammered, flummoxed by his accusations.
“Look at your hand!”
Dumbfounded by his words, she retreated further away, coming to a standstill when her right heel bumped against the gurney’s legs.
What did he mean by ‘look at you hand’?
She lifted her right hand and turned it over.
Her palm was a dark grayish mass. An hardened envelope adhered to the skin, absorbing the light with its sharp, multifaceted ridges. The crust espoused the contour of her hand with perfection, completely masking the skin beneath. It was as if her hand had been plunged into a vat full of parts and kept there while various pieces fused together over her skin.
The hardened material gelled over her hand and began to creep up, oozing along her arm. She tried to whisk the encroaching oddity with her other hand, but to her horror, it, too, got infected. Both her hands turned a black so dark, so profound, that even the surrounding light was swallowed, siphoned by the darkness.
With impossible speed, her hands changed shape, sprouting long needle-like appendages in lieu of fingers. Other serrated horn-like protuberances exploded along the ridges of her arms, grotesquely modifying her appearance.
She was turning into a monster.
Into a bug.
Into a Snyl.
Glancing down at her feet, she saw huge talons extend both forward and rearward, the outgrowths enlarging in size even as she watched. A moment later, her legs began to tremble and shake, the flesh replaced by the shell-like coating that now enslaved her. She was more bug than human now, with only her upper torso still untouched.
“You see,” Asher hissed, his stare full of hatred and revulsion. “You are one of them.”
She shook her head.
There was something on her cheek. Something cold. It was so biting that it burned, digging deeply into her freckle-spattered face. She raised a hand to touch it, but her finger had melted together to form a claw and she let it drop out of sight, wishing at once she could unsee.
The coldness spread to her forehead, to her neck, to her ears. It gripped her whole being now, supplanting the last bonds she still possessed, the ones she desperately hung on to with every fiber of her being.
The ones that meant she was still human.
The bitter cloak settled over her eyes, cutting off her last available sense. She was mired in the gloom now, blind, senseless, alive… yet not.
The gloom was a pit of despair, a final purgatory from which the only possible escape, or outcome, was death.
She waited for it. Prayed for it. Her mind was still her own’s but she knew it was just a matter of time before it wouldn’t be anymore. Already dark thoughts had begun to attack the wall she’d put up in self-defense. Wave after wave, attack after attack, the wall buckled and flexed against the incessant pressure from the dark horde.
There are so many of them. So many.
The horde engulfed her.
She tried to shut her mind down, to crawl back into her soul.
But it was too late.
For she was Snyl, now.
“Beatrice? Are you all right?”
Two arms gripped her by the shoulders.
“She’s not responding.” A woman’s voice said. “Beatrice, can you hear me?”
In her head, she felt the layers of gloom dissipate, whisked away by the voices making their way to her brain.
“Jesus! What’s wrong with her, Doc?” Another voice said, further away.
She sensed a cloth, damp and clammy, on her face. She snapped her eyes open. Looming above, she recognized the concerned stare of Doctor Leyland.
“She’s coming out of it,” Leyland said.
Beatrice turned her head slowly. The other person ogling each of her moves was a young man with a narrow face and a head wrapped up in a thick bandage.
“Do you know where you are?” The youth asked.
“Hawaii?” Beatrice croaked, favoring Leyland with an almost imperceptible wink. Noah’s eyes widened.
“Doc, is she alright?” he asked, clearly distressed.
“Let me double-check,” Marilisa said, pulling out her stethoscope. She proceeded to listen to Beatrice’s heartbeat for a minute then flashed a light in each of her eyes. She gave an elaborate sigh then stuffed her hands in the pockets of her smock.
“As far as I can tell, she’s fine,” she said, at last. “But let’s do a final test.”
Noah shook his head with a nervous nod.
“Beatrice?” Marilisa said, taking position near the chair. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes, Doctor Leyland.”
“Your friend, Noah, here…” she indicated the young man nervously looking on. “He wants to know if you’re all right.”
“Noah?” Beatrice said. “He’s here?”
Noah came closer to the chair where Beatrice slumped.
“Trish, I’m right here.”
All of a sudden, Beatrice straightened up like a deranged Jack-in-the-Box. Noah, startled, jerked backwards but before he even realized what was going on, Beatrice had wrapped her arms around him.
“Thank God. You’re all right,” she said in his ear.
She heard a sharp intake of breath followed by a chortle. “And you?”
She hugged him again, even fiercer. “I’m fine. I just had the weirdest dream, the worst nightmare I ever had.”
They eased apart. She put a delicate hand out to his head. “How’s your head?”
It was Marilisa who answered. “He suffered a concussion and should be resting, but boys being boys and all, he simply ignores my recommendations.”
“But I wanted to check up on Trish,” Noah grumbled.
The Doctor nodded, but her mouth was a thin line. “Yeah, all right. But you really need to take it easy. You had quite a bump on that thick skull of yours.”
“Got it, Doc.”
Beatrice piped up. “So, Captain Leyland, how are your other patients? How’s Paige?”
There was an uneasy exchange of glances between the other two.
And Beatrice knew at once it couldn’t be good news.
14 Under
“Physically she’s fine,” Leyland said.
She was standing at the foot of the pop-up bed where Corporal Paige Hillcox lay. Beatrice, at her elbow, observed the play of emotions on her face.
“Her wound wasn’t that severe. The bullet passed right through her body, a centimeter below the collarbone.” She shook her head. “It’s here,” she tapped her right temple, “that something’s not right.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
The Doctor’s shoulders slumped. “I’m not sure. It’s an Amilaki thing, I’m afraid. Every time she wakes up, she’s responsive and seems fine. She knows who and where she is, and even our names.
But that’s about it. She can’t recall any of the last day’s events.”
“She doesn’t remember the, huh, shooting?”
“No.”
Beatrice inched closer to the bed. Paige’s pale skin looked even more pallid than she remembered, and even though she slept, her features appeared tense, as if something was tormenting her. Her short dark-brown hair was matted over her forehead and though it was rather cool in the room, she could see beads of perspiration on her skin. She found a place to sit on the bed.
“But what’s scares me is what happens when she’s under. Her heartbeat starts to accelerate, zooming up to dangerous levels. She becomes agitated, fighting back imaginary monsters. The episodes are so bad that I have to sedate her so that she doesn’t hurt herself, or others. I hate it because she slips back into even deeper sleep. And then—”
“The cycle repeats itself,” Beatrice said, finishing the sentence.
Leyland nodded. “Yes.”
“You said earlier it was an Amilaki thing.”
Marilisa rolled the blanket down a couple of inches, exposing Paige’s neck and shoulders. She scanned the dressing for spots of blood and satisfied there were none, repositioned the blanket as it was. “Yes. Kalxin examined Paige with his own medical device. He said Paige was victim of a new form of mind control, one that was new to him. He feared there wasn’t much he could do but hoped that it was a temporary condition, that Paige would fight it off… eventually.”
“Eventually?”
“That’s what he hoped.”
“Jesus,” Beatrice said, shaking her head. “And what about Private De Rozan?”
Marilisa’s face fell. “He suffers the same affliction as Paige. He wakes up and feels okay for a few minutes, then everything turns to crap.”
There was a polite knock at the door.
Jose Garcia’s head popped into view. “Can I come in?”
“Of course,” Leyland answered.
The Staff Sergeant made his way closer to the two women. His left arm was encased in a black neoprene sling that featured an adjustable strap that went over the shoulder and down the back. He smiled as his eyes settled on Beatrice.
“Miss McKenzie, it’s great to see you’re feeling better.”
Beatrice grinned back. “I owe it all to you, Sergeant. But what about you? How’s your arm?”
He looked down at the sling. “Not bad, actually. Doc, here, says I just have to keep this on for a couple of weeks and I’ll be as good as new.”
“That’s great news,” Beatrice said, her smile growing even wider.
Garcia nodded. “Yes. Between you and me, Miss McKenzie, those weeks can’t go fast enough. I just hate being sidelined.”
“But you’re still in uniform!”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m still on duty. I had to convince Colonel Graves, though. He wanted me to take some time off. Can you believe it? Me, being away from the action? That’s just not on my agenda!”
Beatrice laughed. “Well, I, for one, am glad you’re still around.”
“Thank you, Miss McKenzie.”
There was an awkward silence then Garcia turned to Leyland. “Any change, Doc?”
Marilisa shook her head. “Afraid not. The good news is that she’s getting stronger everyday. Her shoulder should heal with no foreseeable problems. Like I was telling Beatrice, it’s the other thing that bugs me.”
Garcia’s stare dimmed a few degrees. It was clearly evident that he cared a great deal for the Corporal.
“If I could get my hands around those that did this.”
“It’s that woman, Sergeant,” Beatrice interjected. “Tebayi.”
He turned to stare at her. “The one from that warehouse we raided?”
“Yes, I’m sure of it. Who else could it be?”
Beatrice rose and joined the two standing. “It’s surprising how, huh, tenacious that person is.”
Garcia wasn’t impressed. “It’s a cowardly way to do things, if you ask me. Fudging the mind of someone to do your bidding while you hide in the shadows.” He clenched a fist. “Makes me mad just thinking about it.”
“Me too,” Beatrice acknowledged. She put an hand to Garcia’s shoulder. “We’ll stop her, I’m sure of it.”
He snorted and shook his head. “I wonder…”
“That makes me think. I need to talk with Asalak.”
Beatrice inclined her head to Garcia then turned to Leyland. “You’ll keep me posted if there’s a change in her condition.”
The Doctor nodded. “Of course.”
Beatrice gave one last look at the soldier lying on the cot then made her way out of the room. The rage Garcia felt had jumped over to her, like a virus fluttering from one host to the next. Jose was right: Tebayi was a coward, plain and simple.
And she needed to be stopped.
The inherent problem to the whole Amilaki affair was one of trust.
Or rather, the lack of it.
And it had been that way since day one.
As she made her way outside the medical sector and walked into the common area, she wondered if things could have turned out differently. Picturing it in her mind, she entertained the thought of having the Amilaki land in front of the White House.
What would have happened?
There would have been plenty of confusion, paranoia and fear. That was a given.
But then what?
The aliens were in dire straits. Their entire species was at risk.
But was that because their craft had crashed in the lake?
The way she understood it was perhaps different than the truth.
They had wanted to find refuge within compatible organisms on Earth.
Not necessarily with Humans.
But apparently, we were the only creatures with big enough brains to accommodate their intellects. When they departed Ukun, they were but pods. They had jettisoned their bodies, leaving them behind to maximize their ability to survive the long voyage ahead. So, in a sense, it was true that their entire species was at loss of being wiped out. Their world was gone. They only had that one ship. And one Coalescence, that now accounted for their entire civilization.
It was a hard concept to accept.
A whole species. An entire race of people, with their accumulated knowledge in astronomy, medicine, science and technology, in a space not much larger than an average SUV.
It boggles the mind.
Yet, here they were.
Beatrice shook her head.
What if they had made contact in the expected, traditional, way? The way it should have been. With the President, the army, the media, etc… What then?
She was pretty sure things would have been way different.
And it would have made our chances of survival even more remote.
It was easy to visualize: the Amilaki announcing their obligation to ‘inhabit’ Human ‘volunteers’.
Pretty sure that would have been the first strike against them.
Then, another announcement: “Oh, by the way, a destructive force of unimaginable power is heading your way. Not our fault, good luck anyway.”
Pretty sure that would have mean a few missiles up their blow holes.
She sighed.
There was no easy way to wrap one’s head around it. The Amilaki were here. They were still in troubled waters. They were split apart by internal conflict, with some taking action against their own kind. And on top of it all, on top of everyone’s head, was the threat posed by the Snyl.
In a sense, they were the reason why the Amilaki were here in the first place.
The Snyl.
Her skin crawled with the mere thought of them.
The nightmare was still on her mind, just a blink away. She had but to close her eyes for a few seconds and the terror would bubble up, rising from the dark pool of her psyche. The nightmare had engulfed like no other one before. It had been a visceral experience; a terrifying and even transformative event.
And since then, she now f
elt closer to them.
Because even though it had only been a dream, she had been one of them.
She could still feel the horror of it, as she turned into one of them.
She knew there was a message embedded in the nightmare. She didn’t know, however, if it had somehow been planted by Tebayi or if it was really from the Snyl.
And she was too terrified to find out.
The nightmare would always be there, percolating in the recesses of her subconsciousness. She had to keep it that way because if she looked too closely, the dark thoughts of the Snyl would grab hold of her, maybe forever.
“Beatrice?”
The voice cut through the gloom in her head like a ray of light. She turned to the tall man with the bright stare.
“I was looking for you,” Asalak said, drilling his eyes into her’s.
She noticed the pull of his jaw and the way the muscles moved beneath the skin.
“What’s wrong?” She asked, already fearing the answer.
“It’s Eklan.”
Her heart leaped. “What happened?”
“It’s better if you come.”
“Lead the way.”
He gave a curt nod and she followed him down the hallway. Up ahead, two guards watched them come closer, a look of mistrust solidifying into place.
A chill went down her spine and for a second she felt as if she was the enemy.
Maybe you are.
The thought had come out of nowhere but for a breathless moment she wondered if the inner voice was her own’s.
Or someone else’s.
15 Regrets
The Cube looked the same as the last time she’d seen it except for the throng of people at the door.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s Eklan.” Asalak answered. “He’s locked himself inside.”
Taken aback by the news, she gaped at the man walking alongside. “But why?”
He shook his head. “Something happened to him during the attack. We fear he’s been infected.”
“Infected?”
He turned her way and she could see the tension behind the stare. “Yes. I’m afraid it’s not good.”
The Parabiont Invasion Book 3 Page 9