by Watts, Peter
~
Okay, we’ll mention wife one, briefly. Her post-coital cigarette didn’t package with a what are you thinking. Hers was a beady-eyed scowl and a demand to know what your damage was. What had happened to fuck you so thoroughly up, she couldn’t begin to fathom. Were you molested as a child? Did Daddy piss in your cornflakes? Did something awful transpire to make you so afraid of the dark? You loved her, you desired her happiness with the intensity of a death wish. But you couldn’t tell her what was buried in your heart, couldn’t articulate the queasy blackness that flooded your mind whenever you tried. If you knew where she’d run off to after your marriage fireballed, you could call her up, tell her about the time you visit Mexico to meet a childhood chum and come to taped hand and foot upon the ledge of a marble tub, IV needle in your femoral artery, half your blood oozing drip by drip through a tube into gallon bags. Classical music plays. There’s a muttered conversation that you can’t understand, and not because blood loss causes your ears to ring, nor because the voices are muttering in Spanish. It’s because whatever language is formed by this combination of glottal stops, clicks and liquid hisses, it isn’t human. You manage to peel free of the tape, slick with your fluids as it is, the heat of the room, and slide over the rim of the tub into a heap. You vomit. That’s what happens when blood pressure drops to nil. Keep crawling toward the light, all you can do, coherent thought is water through a dribble glass, it just makes a mess on your shirt. Three of them stand in the parlor with your host. They wear variations on the face of the grave and very nice suits. There’s a naked body curled upon a rubber mat. The body is bound in barbed wire and one of the men, Armani suit and snazzy shoes, sips from a red tube inserted at the victim’s neck. Everybody pauses to stare at you, including the dead or dying guy, his glassy eyes are wet as you drag yourself past, hand over hand. His eyes reflect your antlike toil across the killing floor. Maybe he’s reenacting Horace Greasley’s great escape vicariously through you. Maybe he’s already there. The front door swings open and uniformed men burst through screaming Policía! Their assault rifles start flashing and the room fills with clouds of dust and smoke. You crawl onward, past threshing jackboots and smoldering shell cases. Explosions and screams continue unabated. It goes on and on. Longest movie you’ve ever been in. Later at the hospital a tall handsome American sits at your bedside. Tubes everywhere, but at least the fluids are going into you this time. The man introduces himself as Agent Justin Steele. He flashes a badge and declares who he works for, although none of it sticks in your consciousness, you’re wrapped in a cocoon of drugs and shock. He lights a Rubios, starts a pocket recorder, and says to tell him everything you know, start at the beginning in Alaska when you were a kid. You comply, half expecting his face to deform at any moment. Takes a while to relate the tale, takes an eon, in fact. Agent Steele doesn’t interrupt and when you finish he thanks you for your service to your country, best to never speak of this incident again, Tooms was shot resisting arrest for extradition to the USA, and so forth. You’re weak and fading, yet you clutch his sleeve and ask what’s it all about, ask what the flat affects are, where they come from, why were you, lowly you, lured to Mexico, and you know what the answer is before it doesn’t come. You have so many damned theories burning a hole in your imagination. Could be you babble about space vampires, demonic possession, and Count D his own bad self. Steele smiles as if the cigarette in his hand comes with a blindfold. He leans in close and whispers that he’s seen this all before, it’s always worse than you think, says it no longer matters. Go home, screw your wife, pet your dog, relive your glory days with a six-pack and a bowl. The fat lady is working on her arpeggios.
~
Your buddy Felix, an ex Naval Intelligence officer with connections across the US and Europe, and who also doses himself daily with LSD and vaporized marijuana while listening to talk radio, won’t permit dogs into his trailer because everybody knows the ID chips implanted at the veterinarian’s office are military grade transceivers beaming info to spy satellites. He has a theory about Mr. Flat Affect. It’s insane and you also think it has merit. Felix disappears one day, leaves a roach smoldering in the ashtray, a spackle of blood in a tight pattern on the ceiling directly above his easy chair. The police park a van across the street from your apartment for a month, then. Nobody contacts you.
~
The power goes dead after midnight and you lie there, a bundle of twigs, staring out the window, praying for the town lights, any of them, to return. Only stars, the black body of darkness. Chip pads in and sits, muzzle pointed at you. He is a pure black shadow. You begin to cry, terror squeezing tears from your ducts. Amie grips your shoulder, says she has something to tell you, baby. That’s when you know the jig is up, the power’s never coming back on, you’ve seen the last of the light, because Amie and Chip died years and years ago. You close your eyes and visualize the faces at Tooms’ basement party, the faces in that deathroom at the Mexico City hotel. The images move with the sluggishness of a dream. Your friends and enemies only watch pop-eyed and motionless as you flee. Some wear the demented un-mask that drips with earth from the grave. They might’ve loved or hated you before the rostrum made its pith stroke. Now they grin as you flee, your bare feet slapping a treadmill that bores endlessly through a cosmic honeycomb. None of you are going anywhere.
Laird Barron is the author of several books, including The Croning, Occultation, and The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All. His work has also appeared in many magazines and anthologies. An expatriate Alaskan, Barron currently resides in Upstate New York.
GODS AND DEVILS
Taylor Grant
Why can't I open my eyes? Vega thought. I'm not dreaming.
Am I?
Like searing fire, a single stab of pain shot through his arm to the marrow, followed by a rush of warmth. Then the rest of his body began to tingle. This was no dream. He'd been injected with something. He knew the feeling from back in Academy training; induced consciousness, only to be used in emergencies.
Next he felt an electrical pulse lance through his brain, forcing his eyelids to flutter open.
His vision was blurry, but he recognized the porcelain, impossibly perfect features of Sona staring down at him. He took note that her right ear was missing, as well as some artificial flesh from her forehead.
A stronger electrical pulse now, coursing through his body, forcing his muscles to seize up for an agonizing moment. This better be a goddamn emergency, he thought.
He sat up with a groan and wiped temperature-regulating gel from his face. His eyes widened when he noticed the lower half of Sona was missing; it looked as if she'd been torn in two.
"Sona, what...?"
Upon closer inspection, he could see that a large section of her throat had been torn open—rendering her unable to speak.
Vega stared at her, wondering what might have caused such damage. Sona was a female droid, but she was built like a tank, complete with a dura-alloy chassis. She worked with quiet efficiency to disconnect him from the stasis field. As he rose to his feet, Vega grabbed the edges of the sleep pod for balance; his legs felt like they were made of pudding. Yet even hunched over, his six-foot five frame towered over the half-android.
He surveyed the stasis chamber. Everything appeared normal. Five hundred gleaming sleep pods, stacked ten rows tall, surrounded him. They were shaped like large silver eggs, containing humanity's last hope. Inside these pods were thirty-six crewmembers and four hundred and sixty-three passengers.
A nerve-grating sound caught his attention and he turned to see an awful sight. Sona was crawling across the floor using her remaining appendages; wet, mechanical entrails dragged behind. He watched with disgust as she pulled herself toward the control console and manually jacked herself into the ship's mainframe. This was immediately followed by a series of chirps and screeching feedback as she tapped into the computer’s audio circuitry in order to communicate.
"...skritch...Captain...skritch...Vega.�
�
"Yes, Sona. I can hear you. What the hell's going on?"
Sona made more audio adjustments, and the next time she spoke her voice had been equalized to sound more or less human.
"An HH slipped through screening. It's on board and has taken a passenger. It attempted to terminate me, but didn't factor in my reserve systems."
Vega felt as if an invisible fist had slugged him in the gut. It was the worst possible news—the worst goddamned scenario.
"Have you woken any other crew members?"
Sona's mouth moved silently, followed by a delayed voice piped through the ship's system. "No, sir. According to Directive 222A, the Captain is first to be—."
"Okay, Okay—good. Let's keep it that way. "You have my gear?
Sona gestured toward a nearby hover-cart, which contained standard issue battle armor and a loaded disrupter.
Vega reached for the sleek-looking weapon and felt the cool metal in his hand; it weighed heavy in his grip.
“There is something else, sir. Something you need to know."
He adjusted the setting on the disrupter "I know, Sona. And I'm sorry..."
Sona's face exploded from a direct shot to the head. A delayed high-pitched screech emanated from the ship's computer a moment later—then stopped abruptly.
Vega set the weapon—still humming from the discharge—back on the cart and began to put on his armor. He would deal with Sona’s remains and alter the ship's records later. There was a more pressing matter at hand.
~
Vega moved stealthily up several flights of stairs toward the Crew Deck. The ship's security system had logged some recent movement in the Mess Hall. The turbolift wasn't an option; the noise would give him away. He would need the advantage of surprise if he was to have any hope of taking down an HH in close quarters.
As he crept toward the main entrance to the Crew Deck, he double-checked his weapon. At its highest setting, the disrupter emitted a lethal blast of concentrated microwave and UV radiation. But that was cold comfort; the creature's speed, strength, and ferocity gave it an enormous edge.
He moved as quietly as possible through the silent Mess Hall. The hundred or so empty chairs gave the large room an eerie quality. Memories of his crewmates eating there flashed in his mind and he longed for their company. Vega had never been good at being alone and the sense of isolation he felt now was almost unbearable.
He forced thoughts of his crew away and continued toward the entertainment area of the Mess Hall. It was both absurd and perverse to imagine a HH needing entertainment, and yet, it made sense that he might find it here. After all, what else would it do once the eating had been taken care of? There was nothing to do on the ship but eat, shit and sleep.
Vega scanned the area, his weapon held in firing position.
Nothing.
He spun in all directions, prepared to annihilate anything that moved, when something caught his eye.
As he looked closer he noticed brightly colored images moving on a holo-screen. It was an episode of the popular cartoon Gloop and Gloopy. The sound was muted, though, and the room was as still as a mausoleum.
Tentatively, he moved closer, his jaw clenched so tightly his teeth began to ache. The tunic beneath his battle armor was drenched in sweat, his heart felt as if it were about to burst through his chest plate.
A faint rasping sound.
It seemed to emanate from the other side of a black lounger just ahead—a large one that probably sat twelve comfortably. From Vega’s vantage point—looking at the back of it—no one appeared to be sitting there.
He switched to a two-handed grip and rushed toward it, finger tight on the weapon’s trigger.
What he saw caught him by surprise. Sprawled out on the floor was a teenage girl; she was a brunette with a boyish figure—perhaps 14 years old. Her standard-issue uniform was still intact and she appeared completely unharmed.
Her chest rose and fell ever so slightly, and there was a slight rasp to her breath. She’s still in stasis, he thought. She’d been taken from her sleep pod without being awakened. It would take a special chemical injection to bring her back to consciousness.
There were two types of HH victims: “Transmitters” and “Feeders.” Transmitters were human hosts used to propagate the parasites; Feeders were humans used solely as sustenance. HH was an abbreviation for ‘Homo Hirudinea,’ a scientific term for the human host of a parasitic alien. Earth's general populace, of course, chose more colorful terms, such as ‘Leeches,’ ‘Hemo-Gobblers,’ ‘Vamps,’ and ‘BFTs’ (Big Fucking Ticks).
Once a victim was infected, chemical changes to their hormones, along with a massive overproduction of adrenaline, resulted in superhuman strength and reflexes. Muscle, bone and connective tissue thickened, followed by functional changes to the teeth and nails—presumably for capturing prey. Inexplicably, the transformation made the host extremely vulnerable to the ultra violet spectrum while producing an insatiable desire for human hemotophagy—feeding on human blood. For these reasons, many believed that scouting missions by the parasites early in mankind's history had originated the vampire myth.
Vega’s grip on his disrupter tightened.
A shadow passed over the girl’s face.
It's above us, Vega thought. Clinging to the ceiling.
The HH landed on him, using the same terrible claws on his helmet that it had used to climb the walls.
Before he could get off a shot, it had ripped the disrupter from his hand and torn off his faceplate with inhuman strength. Vega scrunched his eyes shut, anticipating the worst: he would either be sucked dry or turned. He hoped it was the former.
But the bite didn't come.
He could smell fetid breath on his face. And something wet dripped onto his cheek, sliding down past his neck. Saliva? Blood?
Both?
When he could no longer bear the waiting he opened his eyes. Inches from his face the creature gazed at him. The first thing Vega noticed was its teeth. They were sharp all right, but they were still small and hadn't fully formed yet.
Its features were angelic, with the supple skin of a seven-year-old boy.
The eyes were haunted, but familiar.
"Hello, son," Vega choked.
And then, deep within those icy blue eyes, Vega saw a hint of recognition. They began to soften. And he knew at that moment that his son had not completely turned.
"It's me, Arrycc. It's Daddy."
The boy's face trembled and tears welled in his eyes. His mouth began to quiver, as if trying to remember how to speak.
And then a word came that Vega didn’t think he would ever hear again.
"Daddy?"
There was confusion on the boy's face, as if he'd woken from a deep coma and was struggling to put together the fragments of his memories.
"It's me, little monkey," Vega said, a term of endearment he'd used since his son was a baby.
It was as if a dam broke inside the boy. Tears gushed and he threw his arms around his father as if he'd been away for years. And technically, he had.
Vega reached up and tried to hug his son as best he could while wearing battle armor. "It's okay. I'm here now. It's okay."
He held his son for a long time, feeling the boy's moist face against his.
Soon the reality of the situation began to sink in. Arrycc’s intended victim only a few feet away from them. The parasite inside his son. His own treachery to get the boy onboard the ship.
They stood up and faced each other awkwardly. The boy averted his eyes from the girl, ashamed. Vega glanced down and sighed with relief.
He hasn't turned all the way. Maybe I can still save him.
~
The origin of the parasites had been impossible to authenticate, but many in the scientific community speculated they were interdimensional. At a quantum level they vibrated at a frequency that made them imperceptible to the naked eye—until they possessed a human host.
The epidemic had been as fast as
it was complete; spreading to every human- occupied mining colony, outpost and space station. Physicists speculated that the invaders utilized some form of quantum tunneling technology, enabling them to travel through the multiverse in ways far beyond our scientific capabilities.
Zeta-12, a deep space research station was the only remaining outpost that survived the invasion. The team there, led by Dr. Mirann Tael, was renowned for their groundbreaking work in genetic engineering, specifically in immunology. Their greatest triumph was ‘“Batch 779,’” a prototype biotech curative that combined nanotechnology with alien plant DNA.
Batch 779 had been engineered to enhance the immune system and project against a myriad of diseases; early human trials had showed great promise. During the parasite invasion, it was discovered that Batch 779 had an added benefit; it provided resistance to the parasites. And while the curative had saved the lives of the Zeta-12 crew, without any way to mass-produce it, or transport it quickly enough, it had been too late to save Earth or its interstellar colonies.