by James Axler
But that didn’t mean he didn’t mourn the loss of his wife or daughter, or envy those in the group who had found love. Granted, he was happy for them, but at the same time, he wondered if he’d ever get the chance to know real love again, like what he’d had with Christina.
A slight rustle in the dark room, near the body of the dead woman, attracted Jak’s attention, and he glanced over at her. Night had fallen outside, rendering the room and outer hallway so dark that they’d left a small flashlight on for visibility. It was dim, but more than enough for Jak to see the entire room as if it were high noon.
As he looked more closely at the woman’s body, he saw the jacket Mildred had placed over her head and chest had slid off. Something gleamed wetly in the light, and the albino walked over to check it out.
Her stomach had deflated over the past few hours, and now the corpse looked like any other normal dead woman. Well, not quite. Jak leaned closer to see what looked like some kind of shiny mucus ringing her mouth. “What...” He leaned over to see the trail of thick slime dripping down the side of her dead face and onto the floor...as if something had come out of her mouth and left it behind.
A throwing blade appeared in Jak’s hand as he looked along the glistening trail to the nearest person—the still-sleeping guy who had taken the scavvies hostage.
But as Jak peered closer at the man, he realized he wasn’t just sleeping—his entire body was twitching, as if he was being shaken or something. As the albino took a step closer, he realized that the trail ran not only to the man’s body, but whatever had come out of the dead woman had actually slithered onto him. Jak wrinkled his nose at the thought, even as he leaned down for a closer look at the sleeping man.
That was when his eyes snapped open.
At the same time, his hand shot up and grabbed Jak around the throat—or tried to. Jak, however, had been fighting since he could walk, and evaded the clumsy grab with ease. His blade flicked out in return, and the man drew back three bleeding fingers.
The albino took a step back as the man sat up, then rose to his feet. All trace of his earlier hysteria was gone, replaced by an intense stare at the white-haired teenager.
Jak stared back at him. “Best sit, if know what good for ya.”
The man cocked his head as he regarded Jak. “Current subject appears to be result of massive mutations in parents, resulting in abnormal skin, hair and eye appearance. Given the typical genetic weaknesses inherent in offspring of mutations, subject is deemed not suitable for implantation. Recommend rejoining the rest of the primary group for debriefing and complete physical examination.” He flexed his fingers, which had already stopped bleeding.
“What say ’bout me?” Jak asked. The man didn’t answer, but stepped to the side, apparently intending to go around him. The albino moved over to block his path. “Not goin’ anywhere—”
This time the man moved fast—so fast that even Jak was caught off guard. He slammed an open palm into the smaller man’s chest, knocking him back several steps. Hitting the wall, Jak rebounded and came at him again, cutting him off before he reached the door. “Fucker!”
“What’s going on, Jak?” Ryan asked.
“Slime trail from dead woman,” Jak replied, not taking his eyes off his opponent. “Went this guy. Tried grab me. Said nonsense, now tryin’ leave. ’Bout show him that’s bad idea.”
Blaster in hand, Ryan had also risen to his feet during Jak’s speech, and now pointed the weapon casually at the man’s midsection. “Best stand down before the Jak puts a world of hurt on you.”
The man regarded Ryan with that same flat stare. “New subject acquired. Initial scan shows excellent physical health, with only detractor a missing left eye. Subject otherwise suitable for implantation. Move to acquire if possible before returning to primary group.”
The man stepped toward Ryan, but was stopped again by Jak, who raised his fists. “Said get back, fucker!” He flicked out a fist whip fast, snapping the man’s head back and loosing a trickle of blood from his nose.
The man stopped, now looking at Jak again. “Reevaluating initial observation of mutant. Reflexes and strength both demonstrated at abnormally high levels. Suggest obtaining him as well before departure. Resetting adrenaline levels in anticipation of possible conflict during subdual.” Oddly, his nose, like his fingers earlier, had already stopped bleeding.
“What the hell, Ryan! Are we setting up pit fights now?” J.B. asked from his corner.
“Got a weird situation,” Ryan replied. “Jumpsuit here’s trying to leave, but he keeps spouting stuff about Jak and me.”
He nodded to the albino. “Take him down, but make sure you keep him alive. We’re going to get some questions answered afterward.”
A thin, feral smile creasing his features, Jak nodded and started advancing on the man, who stood motionless as he approached. “Not go anywhere,” he said, then immediately lashed out with a right fist, aiming for the guy’s cheek to stun him before moving in to finish him off.
Only that wasn’t what happened.
Instead, Jak missed.
The man moved his head aside just enough so that Jak’s callused hand grazed his ear. While he did that, his left hand shot up to try to grab Jak’s wrist, while his right hand pistoned forward into Jak’s stomach. The combination of dodge and riposte were so fast they blurred together into one single action, faster than Jak, Ryan or J.B. had ever seen.
Even so, Jak managed to move out of the way of the punch so the man’s fist glanced off his ribs. “Son of a—” He backed off a step, dancing on his feet, bobbing and weaving back and forth. Two angry spots of pink colored his high, pale cheeks. “Done playin’!”
“Don’t kill him, Jak,” Ryan warned.
The albino shook his head, making his snow-white hair sway back and forth. “Won’t—just put him down hard.”
He came in fast this time, a blur of motion. Feinting high to draw the man’s attention, Jak dropped into a crouch and swung his leg out in a roundhouse sweep, intending to knock the man off his feet, then take him out with a punch to the face.
But again he was thwarted. Committed to his sweep, his feral look of glee turned to disappointment as the man stepped over his swinging leg even as he leaned down to hook it with his arm. Using Jak’s momentum against him, he brought the leg up and pushed it back, sending the skinny kid over onto his buttocks.
Kicking free, Jak kept rolling, turning the takedown into a somersault so he could land on his feet. That was good, because the man wasn’t stopping either. He advanced on his smaller opponent and tried to grab him again, this time at the scruff of the neck. Jak batted the incoming arm away with a swat and followed that up with a ram’s-head punch to the man’s shoulder, staggering him.
“Shouldn’t we help him?” Mildred, who had been awakened by the commotion, asked.
“Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, Jak doesn’t need any,” J.B. replied.
“What about the hundredth?” she asked.
“Still waiting to see it,” he replied. “Although this guy’s giving him a decent run for his money.”
Jak darted close to the man and fired several short punches into the right side of his rib cage. The blows had to have hurt—Jak heard the snap of at least one rib in the flurry—but the injury didn’t seem to slow the man in the least. He swept Jak’s fist aside and followed that up with a front kick to his chest that knocked Jak off his feet and sent him skidding across the floor and into the two scavvies.
“What the fuck—?” Tully asked.
“Stay down!” Wincing, Jak got up again, moving a bit slower now.
“You still got him?” Ryan asked.
“Damn right!” Fixing the man with a venomous stare, Jak took two steps forward and leaped into the air, his combat boot–shod feet lancing out to crush the man’s sternum.
The painful twin blows rocked his opponent, and he released Jak’s feet, letting him fall to the floor as he clapped his hands to his head and swayed on his feet. Jak scooted forward, hooked the guy’s legs with his own and swept them out from under him, sending him crashing to the floor, his head bouncing off the concrete. Just like that, the fight was over.
“How hard did you hit him?” Ryan asked.
“Enough make him let go,” Jak replied. “Mebbe burst eardrum, too.” He grinned at Ryan’s wince. “Hey, stopped bastard?”
“Yeah...just hope you didn’t kill him. Mildred, check him out.”
“Sure.” She got up, grabbed the flashlight and went to the semiconscious man, thumbing back his eyelids and shining the light into them. “Pupil response is good. Better observe him for the next couple of hours, though...ugh, what’s this?” She wiped her fingers on her pants leg. “He’s got some kind of slime all over his mouth.”
“Same stuff saw on dead woman.” Jak pointed at the dead body.
Mildred straightened and walked over to take a look. “What is this?” She followed the drying trail to where the other man had been sleeping. “It’s like a giant snail came out of her and into him...which means whatever was inside the dead woman was still alive after she died.”
Chapter Ten
“Sure you want to do this, Mildred?” J.B. asked.
She nodded. “Look, if some kind of parasite is running around here, we could all be at risk.” She glanced at the woman’s body, which was beginning to smell, lying on the counter. “If I can find out what happened to her, maybe I can get a better handle on what this thing is.”
Mildred stood in the abandoned cafeteria, along with Ryan, J.B. and Krysty. Doc was still sleeping, and Jak and Ricky were guarding their prisoner. The dust storm had abated somewhat, but was still kicking up enough dirt that it was dangerous to go outside.
“Makes sense, it’s just...” Ryan shook his head as he stared at the body they stood in front of. “I’ve spent enough time putting people in the dirt. I’m not too keen on doing much poking around in them afterward.”
“Well, it’s a good thing you have me here,” Mildred replied. “All right, you all will probably want to stand back before I make the first incision. She’s probably not going to smell any better once I open her up.”
Ryan and the others did as she suggested. Once they were at a relatively safe distance, Mildred selected her sharpest scalpel and made a Y-shaped incision, cutting down from each shoulder to the middle of the chest, then straight down from there to the waist. Then she peeled back the skin and flesh to reveal the chest cavity. True to her word, there was a release of noxious gases that made the rest of them turn away and cover their noses and mouths.
“I warned you.” Without pausing, she began examining the body’s organs.
“What are you looking for?” Krysty asked as she edged closer.
“I’m not quite sure,” Mildred replied. “But I’ll know it when I see it.” Grabbing the breastbone, she wrenched apart the rib cage with a sharp crack! “So far, nothing out of the ordinary.” She glanced at the others. “You guys don’t have to watch this if you don’t want to.”
“No, I’m good,” Ryan replied. “It’s not so bad once you get used to the smell.”
J.B. just nodded in agreement.
“All right, then.” Mildred picked up her scalpel again. “Krysty, if you don’t mind, I’m going to begin removing organs and handing them to you. Just set them aside on the table, if you would.”
“Should I be looking for anything in particular?” the red-haired woman asked. “Back in Harmony, Mother Sonja taught me a good deal about human anatomy.”
“If you see anything you think is odd, sing out,” Mildred replied. With that, she efficiently cut out and removed the lungs, heart, stomach, liver, pancreas, gallbladder, kidneys and large and small intestines—the last one taking the efforts of both women to remove.
“Anything yet?” Ryan asked.
“Not really, except that all of these organs are in really good shape—not what I’d expect from your typical Deathlands dweller. Even if a person lived in a redoubt for most of his or her life, there can be vitamin deficiencies, organ malfunction, things like that. But these look like they’re at the peak of health.”
“Mildred, what’s all this?” Krysty had set down the slimy loops of small intestine and was peering into the chest cavity. “That doesn’t look familiar to me at all.”
“No, it sure doesn’t....” Mildred took one of her scalpels and reached inside the body to cut something off.
Ryan and J.B. walked closer to get a look at what was on her knife blade. “Any idea what that is?” Ryan asked as he looked at the tiny strands of what looked like white filaments.
“I have no idea, but they’re everywhere on the back of her,” Mildred said. “Have a look.”
The others all gathered around and looked inside the now empty chest cavity. A fine network of the tiny white lines ran all through the woman’s back, along her spine and perhaps even farther.
“It’ll take me a while to cut into the back of the head so I can see if this goes into the brain, but I’m pretty sure it will,” Mildred said. “It looks like whatever was in her had extended some kind of nerve fibers to her organs, her spine and probably her nervous system, as well.”
“To what end?” J.B. asked.
“Hard to say,” Mildred replied. “Typically parasites are content to simply feed off their host. They don’t seek to control them, except in very specific instances. There are, however, many instances of parasitic insects laying their eggs in a host, and when the eggs hatch, they use the host for food or protection. There’s even a barnacle, genus Sacculina, that not only sterilizes its crab host, but forces the crab to gestate the barnacle’s young, even to the extent of altering a male’s hormones to make it more feminine, and better able to birth the young.”
“Okay, as fascinating as all this is, what’s it got to do with her?” Ryan nodded at the body.
“Well, from what I’m seeing, this sort of invasive system goes far beyond simple feeding or protection. It looks like the parasite is actively seeking to control the host in some way. That could explain the improved fighting ability and resistance to physical injury. If the parasite is able to control the nervous system, it can block off the nerve impulses transmitting pain from limbs or injuries, control blood flow...pretty much do whatever it wants to the host.”
“He did say something about ‘resetting adrenaline level’ when fighting Jak. Could that be part of it?” Ryan asked.
Mildred nodded. “Sure. An advanced enough organism could control any bodily system, down to a person’s smallest aspect.” She shuddered. “Don’t ever want to see one of those coming my way, thank you.”
J.B. had been taking in all of this without saying a word. “Is this anything like what went on in Heaven Falls?” The four of them exchanged glances as they recalled that encounter. Heaven Falls had been a utopian ville with a dark secret—its inhabitants had been brainwashed by irradiated honey that had transformed them into superhuman beings with a hive mentality. When Ryan and the others had encountered them—and almost fallen prey to their seductive lifestyle—they had been forced to destroy the entire place in order to prevent the “queen” from spreading her influence throughout the Deathlands.
“Yes and no,” Mildred replied. “For example, it looks like these two were escaping from wherever they came from, so they obviously had retained or regained some free will at some point.”
“Yeah...” J.B. rubbed his
chin. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve got no desire to be facing anything like that again.”
Ryan chose his answer carefully; their time in Heaven Falls had nearly torn the group apart. “I hear you, except these two didn’t seem to be that dangerous. Also, we still need supplies if we’re going to get to another redoubt, so I think they’re our best bet. We all just have to stay on guard, and not take anything for granted this time.”
J.B. nodded. “Sound advice.”
“Wait a minute. Something’s still bothering me about this woman.” Krysty looked up from where she had been staring at the autopsied body. “Mildred, you said the organs all looked to be in good shape, right?” At Mildred’s nod, she asked, “Then what killed her?”
“I wouldn’t be able to tell without running far more detailed tests,” Mildred replied. “However, depending on the level of control this thing had over her, if there was ever a contest to maintain dominance, it’s possible the parasite might have inadvertently killed her while trying to incapacitate her as a last-ditch effort to survive. Of course, it would then have to find a different host.”
“Mebbe...” J.B. said. “All I really know is that the guy spoke a lot different when he didn’t have that thing in him than when he did.”
“Yeah, what about him?” Krysty asked. “They both obviously came from the same place, yet he didn’t seem affected by these things, but she was. Did he have one previously? What happened to it?”
Mildred held up her hands. “Hey, hey folks, I’m not Quincy.” She looked around the three blank stares she was getting. “It was a television show—never mind. Anyway, best thing to do now would be to head back down and talk to that guy, see what answers we can get out of him—”
She was interrupted by the sound of boots pounding the floor as someone ran toward them. A moment later, Ricky skidded to a stop in the doorway.