But then Roy's eyes rolled up and he slumped in Myth's arms. Several seconds passed before she dropped him onto the grass, where he lay with his arms and legs splayed out, a silver dollar-sized hole in the center of his forehead. He didn't appear to be breathing. Myth wiped her mouth with her sleeve and straightened up. Dan and Diana's stares – and weapons – shifted between her and Roy's wife.
"What did that woman do to him?" She pointed an accusing finger at Myth. "Looks like she drilled a hole in his head!"
"I'm not sure about that." Dan glanced at the tall young woman with the alien mind. "But I intend to find out."
"Is he alive?"
"I don't know."
They stood facing each other, neither Dan nor Diana pointing their handguns directly at the older woman, but not exactly pointing them away, either. The woman, meanwhile, was doing some studying of her own. Diana had the impression she was measuring the distance between them – perhaps to escape or perhaps for a more aggressive purpose. Something was seriously off in her reaction to her husband lying limp on the grass. Her expression was all calculation. Not a shred of grief or concern that Diana could see.
As if sensing their thoughts, Ruth raised her hands in abrupt surrender or reassurance.
"Look, no harm intended – Roy just had trouble sometimes handling all the changes. Please let me tend to him."
After a moment, Dan nodded. "All right. Good luck to you."
"And to you, too, young man. May we all find a way through this terrible time of darkness."
They retreated down the street from the cul-de-sac. Diana looked back to see the stout woman dragging her husband none too tenderly along by one arm. Ruth paused near the front door, touching the wound on his head. She licked her fingers.
"Ah, Dan..."
Dan watched with her as Ruth, smiling and nodding to herself, probed her husband's head-wound and licked her fingers again. Dan made a noise that was part-sigh and part-exasperated grunt.
"We can't save the world, Diana," he said. He turned a hard gaze on Myth. "But we can do what is necessary to protect ourselves."
"What did you do to him, Myth?" Diana asked.
"Took body sample."
"Why?"
"More change. He was strong. I get more strength – and more knowledge." Myth shrugged under their scrutiny. "It is our way."
"More knowledge?" Dan asked.
"Yes. From his brains."
"Oh, Christ." Dan was shaking his head, jaw muscles working, looking away from Myth as if he didn't dare focus on her in that moment.
"Then you killed him," said Diana.
"Yes."
"Is it your way to kill people to take something from them that you want?"
"No. Do not misunderstand, Diana. Only act in defense. Only take from those who attack or are dead. Against belief otherwise."
"You have ethical constraints?"
"Yes. Ethics. Unlike Keepers."
"Good to know," said Dan, giving her a bleak stare. "Because if you ever try to harm my family in any way, I will kill you."
"Understand. Never do. You are friends." Myth tapped her chest. "We loyal, like Sethisir. Friend as long as breathing."
"Okay, Myth. The same loyalty applies to us. I'm going to take you at your word. For now."
"Thank you, Dan."
On the ride back, Myth grew wobbly on her bike a few miles from their home. Diana noted the fierce concentration on her face as if pedaling required an extreme act of will.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"Change starting. Must rest soon."
Dan was watching her with wary eyes. "Can you make it home?"
"I will."
"How long do these changes take?"
"A day. Maybe little more."
"And what will you be then?" Diana asked. She wasn't sure she liked the idea of Myth taking on any of the sociology professor's qualities. She was just getting used to the idea of Myth occupying Marjorie Wilson's body.
"Faster," Myth replied. "Stronger. More words. Look more like man."
Great, Diana thought.
"But mind" – she tapped her head – "stay same."
"I don't see how that's possible," said Dan. "Being different physically has to affect your brain – how you relate to things."
"In way all experience change mind, yes. But remain Myth."
"How can you be so sure?" Dan asked. "You said yourself you'd never changed before."
"Just know."
Diana didn't share the creature's confidence. How could it be a good thing to ingest genetic material from someone who was mentally unbalanced? According to her, she'd be stronger and more knowledgeable. Why not stronger and more sociopathic?
Diana's uneasiness extended to Penny. What if something triggered a mental relapse in her and they woke up one day to find her consuming Laurie or Donny Jensen? For that matter, they might wake up to find both Myth and Penny feasting on a family member. "It is our way," as the alien in human guise declared. Dan had to be at least considering those possibilities. Rangers weren't dummies.
Dan, who'd been riding ahead a few yards with Myth, dropped back beside her. Penny, with her endless energy, was far in the lead.
"You look like you're thinking deep thoughts," said Dan.
"And I thought you were good at reading people." She smiled when he looked uncertain and then chuckled ruefully.
"You think we should've done something about Ruth?" He paused, lowering his voice. "Or Myth?"
"Have you ever wondered that we might be inheriting a world of super-powerful sociopaths?"
"Can't say that's been a big worry of mine," said Dan. "I'm more concerned about the animals. And about long-term living without electric power and all the other amenities we've grown accustomed to."
"You're not worried a little about your resident alien after what we just saw her do?"
"She seems okay to me."
"She's an alien. How could you evaluate that?"
"Your flying wolf is an alien, too, yet you seem to trust him."
"That's true. But then as far as I know he hasn't eaten any human beings – nor has he shown any desire to. Also, his livelihood doesn't require ingesting other creatures' DNA."
"As far as we know. And we don't really know all that much about him, do we?"
"I know that he saved my ass. I'd say that counts for something when it comes to trusting someone."
"Then you trust Penny?" His cool smile and eyes challenged her.
"I do." Diana swallowed down her reservations. "Under these circumstances."
"That's exactly what I would say about Myth."
Diana smiled thinly and nodded. They rode on in silence.
Chapter 8
THE GUNFIRE MADE LAURIE and her brother jolt up in their seats at the kitchen table. Their mom had just stepped outside, her favorite Mini-30 slung over one shoulder, to grab some sun tea she'd left in the front yard.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
Laurie and Donny scrambled for their weapons on a near wall. Laurie reached her Colt AR first and had it up and chambering in a round while Donny, moving with much less conviction, knocked his AR to the floor and was fumbling to scoop it up when the front door burst open and the Nazrene entered.
Laurie opened fire. In roughly two seconds she learned two things: first, without earplugs and in an enclosed space, the AR sounded ridiculously loud – like a firecracker exploding inches from her ear. The second thing, as her numb eardrums placed the room on mute, was that shooting at a large charging creature that intended to kill you was nothing like shooting at a serenely immobile target. She found herself firing as fast as she could pull the trigger, not really aiming, just pointing the muzzle at the hairy dark shapes pouring through the door, hitting arms and legs and chests – fortunately, enough to cause the first few to stumble and partly stem the tide.
Laurie edged to the front of the stairs and backed up a few steps, getting out of Donny's line of fire and creating some distance f
rom the door, but a glance at her brother showed him squeezing the trigger and looking freaked out.
"The safety!" Laurie hissed at him.
"Shit!"
Donny flicked the safety off. But now the creatures had withdrawn.
"Are they still out there?"
Donny's shout sounded as if it was coming from the bottom of a canyon. Laurie made a shrugging motion and placed a finger to her lips, pointing to the backdoor. She felt more than heard footfalls in the living room. Donny inched around the entranceway, his rifle extended before him. A hairy hand shot out and yanked the rifle out of his hands. Donny stumbled forward – and then the hand returned and jerked him out of sight.
"Donny!"
Laurie started down the stairs with a terrible sinking feeling. The Nazrene were back at the front door, this time crouching in a line behind one of them holding a steel wood-burning barrel-stove from their yard. Laurie backed up the stairs, aiming at a top of a head – which ducked before she could pull the trigger. Would the .223 round blow through the 55-pound steel barrel?
Laurie started blasting away at the feet, barrel, and top of heads. From the stumbling and grunts, she was sure some of her rounds were getting through. Then the barrel was flying at her, smacking into her rifle and crushing it against her chest, knocking her on her butt. A baboon-creature's arm lashed out and grasped the AR's muzzle, ripping it from her hands. In the same moment, the barrel bounced back down the stairs, knocking the lead Nazrene backward.
She raced upstairs, her mind on the set on the Glock 34 she had in her bedroom under her pillow. Only a 9mm, but the magazine held seventeen shots. She could only pray it would be enough to turn the tide.
A glance back from her bedroom door showed a pair of Nazrene leaping into the hallway from somewhere below. Laurie charged into her room, slamming and locking the door behind her before racing to her bed and its precious cargo. She swatted her pillow away and grabbed her pistol. Thank God for its Safe Action trigger. No safeties to switch off or on. She backed into the farthest corner of her room.
The door blew off its hinges in a cloud of splintering wood. A baboon feinted entry and jerked back as she fired, hitting the frame. But wait. Most of the wall is just sheetrock. Intimate knowledge, since she'd spent part of a summer helping her dad hang new sheetrock after a roof leak. She popped a few rounds into the wall between the door and the two by fours and heard a body thud on the hallway floor.
A Nazrene burst through the window less than four feet from her, a large hand on an impossibly long arm snaking out for her pistol. It missed. She blew two rounds into the creature's head and then fired on another baboon following in its wake. It slumped on the windowsill.
The wood-burning barrel made a reappearance at her bedroom door. Laurie dived to the floor, firing at furry legs and feet. The barrel flew at her. She rolled out of its path, firing upward at two or three towering figures. One Nazrene dropped to the floor but another kept coming. More rounds dropped him two feet from where she lay. The third baboon jumped back through the door. Laurie aimed at the wall to the right of the door framed and squeezed the trigger.
Click.
Of all the ear and mind-numbing explosions, that was the loudest and deadliest sound so far. More clips rested in her gun belt hanging on the wall by the front door. Might as well be on the far side of the moon.
Laurie spotted her new bow in a niche between her dresser and the wall eight feet away, a quiver of arrows attached. She rolled to her feet, aiming her pistol to bluff the baboon-creature peeking around the doorway to jerk back, and snatched her bow. She willed herself to calmly notch an arrow while facing the door. A glance from the Nazrene made his eyes narrow with what she took to be skepticism. He edged into the doorway but stepped back when Laurie drew her bow. He probably didn't realize she could see his body through the bullet holes in the sheet rock. Could her arrow break through? Yes, she decided, it could. Laurie drew smoothly to let-off and released. The arrow flashed across the room and punched through the already weakened drywall into the tawny figure – whose angry grunt confirmed receipt of her arrow.
Laurie tried to keep ice water in her veins when she slipped another arrow from her quiver, but the Nazrene was lurching toward her with an enraged snarl, snapping off an arrow protruding from its side. Her arrow slipped in her fingers, missing the string – and the hairy monster was swatting aside her bow and reaching for her throat. She jumped sideways and back, smacking into the wall. It grabbed for her again, but she ducked his hand and bounded away to the top of her bed – expecting one of the creature's octopus-length arms to latch onto her rear leg – but when she turned back another Nazrene, larger and more powerful in appearance, had joined them. A grunt and an impatient gesture from the newcomer stopped Laurie's pursuer in its tracks and caused it to retreat to the doorway.
The larger Nazrene, the apparent leader, advanced on her. Laurie backed away, but there was nowhere to go. Maybe she could sprint around the creature, but its wounded comrade was blocking the door. Glancing through the shattered window, Laurie was startled to see her mom and Donny standing in the side-yard in the company of two or three dozen of the baboon-creatures. Apart from some ripped clothing and their dazed expressions, they appeared all right.
So they aren't going to kill us? At least not right away. But then what do they want from us?
The Nazrene was approaching, its palms raised in reassurance. Laurie considered jumping through the window. Maybe she could run to the end of the roof and drop down and reach the forest before they could grab her? And maybe pigs really can fly? She scowled at herself.
The simian leader was close now. She'd backed herself into a corner. The creature kept coming, though she had been within reach of its long arms for the last few seconds. At last, it extended a hand and grasped her right shoulder. She sensed it wasn't attempting to hold her tightly, that it was in its own way attempting to be gentle, but the hand felt like a six-fingered vise on her shoulder. The fingers of its other hand trailed across her collar bone, pausing at her t-shirt collar, curling under it. The steel wool coarseness of the fur made Laurie's flesh jump – then crawl.
She didn't anticipate the beast's hand jerking downward, ripping her shirt apart down to her waist. It was so fast and forceful that Laurie didn't even register the fabric of her shirt digging into her shoulders and upper chest except as an aftershock. She made a motion to cover the bare swath of exposed flesh, but the Nazrene seized her wrists and pinned them behind her back. It leaned forward and sniffed her neck. She twisted her head away. The sniffing continued downward, its breath warm, moist jets on her skin. She flinched as its nose made contact with her belly button. Either it was checking her edibility or –
Or.
The Nazrene leader straightened up, and she felt something nudge her bared stomach. She jerked back in horror at the purplish-red appendage jutting out from its groin area – as large and thick as a tumescent stallion's. No stinger, but its swollen, plum-sized head was every bit as terrifying.
"No," she gasped, straining back in his grasp, but getting nowhere. "No way! You disgusting baboon!"
The leader's red-brown eyes bore into hers. Its mouth curled upward and parted just wide enough to reveal an array of grey-white fangs. She had the strongest and most revolting sense it was smiling. As if it found her pathetic protestations amusing.
A side-glance out the window revealed that down on their yard, things had gone horrifically wrong: her mom and Donny were draped side-by-side on their stomachs over the picnic table, naked, while a pair of Nazrene thrust into them from behind. Her mind recoiled in terror and disbelief. This was not happening. Of all the terrible things she'd seen – all the hideous corpses, the bizarre, predatory creatures – this was the hardest to accept.
The creature pulled her away from the window and shoved her onto the bed.
"We're human!" she shouted at him. "What's wrong with you? We're not your damn mates!"
The Nazrene made a downwa
rd plucking motion, followed by a ripping apart gesture with both hands. Laurie read that to mean he was offering her the choice of stripping herself or being stripped. Judging from the burning pain in her shoulders from having her shirt torn open, she expected having her jeans forcibly removed would be worse, maybe even injurious considering the creature's strength. Though perhaps not as injurious as what the simian had planned next.
"Just to let you know," she said, unsnapping her jeans and belt, "I will kill you for this."
She wondered if anyone had ever made a more empty threat. When he was finished with her – and his companions in the yard with her family – they would all be killed. She had little doubt of that. Raped and killed by an alien baboon-beast. How could that be her fate in a real universe?
The leader climbed onto the bed and crouched over her. A fierce intelligence – or was it passion? – burned in his reddish eyes. Laurie kicked him between his legs with all her might. She expected a snarl of agony and a terrible retribution, but the thing's mouth just parted more in what struck her now as a leer more than a smile. Had she got the location wrong, or didn't he have testicles?
Laurie braced her knees against his stomach, but he pulled them apart as easily she would've opened a door. His massive appendage began to find purchase, and her frantic squirming did nothing to deny it.
"Fuck you!" she screamed in his face. Laurie couldn't remember ever using the f-bomb before. "I will fucking kill you!"
And then the pain began, and a stretching she thought would never end.
THEY SMELLED smoke before they noticed the small, grey cloud drifting over the farm. It was a charbroiled meaty odor mixed with burning wood. Not terribly suspicious, since for their major cooking fests they'd used firewood and kindling. But to Dan, unexpected: their plan was to carefully "harvest" their chickens – the only remaining current source of fresh meat on the farm – on a very sparing schedule, relying more on their eggs, a far more efficient source of high-quality protein.
"Was your wife planning to surprise us with a feast?" Diana asked.
"I hope," said Myth. "Very hungry for meat."
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