What the Hell Did I Just Read

by David Wong

  It skidded to a stop. Marconi spilled out of the side door, looking frantic. He was breathlessly yammering to us as he ran and tried to avoid tumbling down the steep path.

  When he got within earshot, he said, “Thank goodness, you haven’t planted the bomb yet.”

  I said, “We haven’t. Ted has. He’s, uh, inside the thing, right now. It’s going to detonate in like two and a half minutes.”

  Marconi’s eyes went wide. “No! We have to stop it!”

  29. THE DANGER OF ACTING ON INCOMPLETE INFORMATION

  “What? Why?”

  “I am afraid it will take more than two minutes to explain.”

  Joy Park, who we had been told not very long ago was holding Marconi hostage, ran down the path behind him. She shouldered past him and kept running down toward the orifice, yelling, “We have to get it out!”

  John, Amy, and I were all rapidly trying to figure out if this was, in fact, the right thing to do. But Marconi was already hustling after Joy, so it was either follow them or watch it happen.

  Ted had just emerged from the orifice, covered in slime, yelling for everyone to clear out, saying there was fire in the hole. In response, Joy was waving her arms and screaming like a maniac at Ted, shouting at him to remove the fire from said hole.

  Ted looked very, very skeptical. Rather than try to scream a rapid explanation to convince him, Amy had the ingenious thought to simply yell, “WE THINK THERE’S ANOTHER KID IN THERE!”

  Ted cursed and dove back in.

  We all waited around the orifice, hearing faint squicking sounds from deep inside it. We were well within the blast radius of the device—how much time had passed?

  I was just about to suggest we all flee, when Ted squishily emerged from the birth canal for the second time. He was cradling the mucus-covered bomb, which had about two inches of fuse left. He whipped out his combat knife and sawed off the fuse at the root. The next time somebody tried to light that thing, they’d only have seconds.

  Marconi nodded and said, “Very good. Thank you. First things first—please call down the dive team, I’ll explain everything. Also, your daughter is up in my tour bus, with her mother. Please go to her, she’s distraught.” He turned to Joy. “Go up and stall the Christ’s Rebellion bus, tell them I need to have a word before they leave with the children. They will be skeptical. Convince them.”

  Ted and Joy headed up the path. John said to Marconi, “Okay, what’s the deal? You saying the bomb won’t work? Will it work on the larva up there?”

  “It will work. Just not how you think. The brimstone ritual—”

  I said, “The what?”

  “The burning sulfur, you’re creating literal fire and brimstone. It will in fact pierce the larvae’s skin, as you witnessed for yourself. And that is precisely what it wants. That’s what allows it to hatch. It’s the final stage in its life cycle.”

  I said, “Its life cycle depends on us happening to invent a sulfur and thermite dildo gun at exactly the right time?”

  “Not exactly that, but yes.”

  Amy said, “Oh god, why didn’t I see it? The Mikey larva wasn’t maturing or hatching or anything else until John shot it. It only hatched because we tried to kill it.”

  Marconi said, “Think of it like a rash. Have you ever been infected with ringworm? You scratch it, it spreads, the spores attaching to your fingernails. To prevent its spread, you cannot—”

  “Scratch the itch,” said John, nodding thoughtfully. He looked at me. “‘Don’t let them scratch the itch.’ That’s what I was trying to write on your asshole.”

  I said, “Wait, why would John and I have built that sulfur dildo cannon when we were on the Sauce if it was just going to make the situation worse? We should have been under the sway of profound cosmic insight or whatever.”

  John said, “I know exactly what happened. You built the dildo gun, I disagreed with that plan. That’s what we were fighting about when the Sauce wore off. Looks like you owe someone an apology.”

  “What? Who?”

  Marconi said, “We had assumed the larvae’s camouflage was targeted only at the host parents, that it needed the parents only until it completed some life cycle over the course of time. However, I now believe that death—a violent death—is required for its final emergence. It’s not as if the concept of transcendence to a higher plane of existence via death or martyrdom is unheard of in our mythology.”

  I said, “So, why not take some horrific form that people couldn’t resist killing? Why bother looking like adorable kids at all?”

  “You have to think of a ritual like a chemical reaction—there are specific elements required in specific amounts at specific stages. The offspring feeds on human will, but requires a particular brew for nourishment. Not mere terror, but love and then betrayal, and the unique brand of fear and hatred that follows that sequence. It’s like how we exploit a chili pepper—it develops harsh chemicals as a survival mechanism to deter insects, but we harvest them as a spice.”

  “All right, so what would the consequence be of setting off the bomb in the Millibutt’s larva chute?”

  “We have no way of knowing, but I think it is reasonable to say that the possible outcomes range from no effect at all, to an entire egg sac full of unseen larvae hatching simultaneously. What is important is that I have no reason to believe it would actually harm the entity itself.”

  “Well, we can’t just let eleven of these bastards out into the world to keep chewing on their parents, so what do we do now?”

  “Remember my creed—no action from ignorance. We need data and therefore we need time. So, we keep the larvae in a location in which we can control them and, above all, keep them saf—”

  He was interrupted by an eruption of gunshots and screams from above.

  Amy

  Amy spun toward the chorus of bangs and screaming children from the hilltop. As it turned out, NON hadn’t abandoned Undisclosed to its fate—they apparently just needed some time to regroup. This, Amy thought, would have been fantastic news thirty seconds ago.

  The darkness above was illuminated by flashing threads of piercing light, like somebody had dropped a box of fireworks in a campfire. Amy took off up the steep path again and she had the thought that she needed to get her little noodle thighs onto a StairMaster if she was going to do this kind of work.

  The creepy black cloaks had traded in their futuristic beam weapons for even more elaborate guns that fired handfuls of that hellish burning metal—she could smell the sulfur.

  They had gone right after the school bus.

  The remaining members of the biker gang, who were not big believers in passive resistance during the best of times, had responded with shotguns. With each shot that was fired, the children inside the bus shrieked in terror. At the moment Amy crested the hill, one of the bikers pounded on the side of the bus with his palm and screamed for the driver to go, just go.

  NON had blocked the road with two of their trucks, but only in one direction—the bus went in reverse and backed up past the church, continuing on the looping road, going backward all the way while the cloaks peppered the front of the vehicle with brimstone. The bikers started hurling buckshot at the cloaks’ backs and in the pitched battle that ensued, the bus slipped off into the night.

  The boys came up behind her. Amy was about to say, “Thank god, they got away!” when David said, “SHIT! The larvae are loose!”

  John said, “I do think it’s time to admit that containment is not our strong suit.”

  The cloaks were retreating to their vehicles and, a moment later, a NON truck rumbled past, in pursuit of the school bus, soon followed by a second, and a third. There were shouts and the noise of Harley-Davidson exhaust coughing to life, then a chrome line of bikes went snaking down the road after the trucks. Detective Bowman’s SUV was next, followed by a squad car, sirens blaring into the night. It was quite the parade.

  Amy watched the herd of noisy lights disappear into the darkness, and
in that moment the downpour chose to resume. She’d lost her raincoat at some point, and couldn’t remember when. Cold water ran down her back.

  David said, “Get to the Jeep! Let’s go!” but no one was answering his call.

  Amy looked to see where everyone had gone and found John, Marconi, and Joy all huddled together in the rain nearby, all muttering urgent commands to each other. Standing over something. Amy went over to them.

  Ted Knoll was kneeling in the grass.

  Lying there in front of him, was his daughter.

  Maggie was trying to stifle a cry, taking rapid breaths, her little chest heaving. Ted, in a calm, controlled voice told her he was going to lift her shirt to get a look. The moment he did so, Maggie started wailing.

  She had a cluster of smoldering dime-sized holes in her belly. The projectiles were still burning inside her, tendrils of smoke drifting out. Amy moved closer and could both hear and smell sizzling meat.

  David walked up and said, “Ooooooh, fuck.”

  Loretta emerged from the RV, saw her daughter, and came apart. “Oh god. Oh god, no. Oh please god…”

  Marconi said, “We have to move her. Get her in the RV! Now! I have medical equipment!”

  David clearly seemed to think this was a horrible idea, but still helped haul the girl inside, through the RV’s kitchenette, and into that cramped little lounge area near the back. They laid Maggie gently onto the narrow fold-out sofa. Her shirt was a crimson rag.

  John said to Ted, “Don’t worry, this guy’s a doctor.”

  Ted said, “He looked right at her. Fucker had a mask like a little baby. Looked her right in the eyes and pulled the trigger.”

  “I know, man, they—”

  “They’ll keep coming,” Ted said. “If I don’t stop them, they’ll keep coming. Keep her safe. You hear me? You keep her safe, or it’s on you.”

  “What? What are you—”

  Ted turned and ran out of the RV, John yelling after him.

  Amy sprinted to the door of the RV just as the camouflage pickup pulled up, Ted’s army buddy at the wheel. Ted leaped into the bed of the truck and they tore off after the convoy. Behind Amy, little Maggie was howling while her father became a shrinking pair of taillights that were quickly swallowed by the night.

  Amy said, “We have to get her to a hosp—”

  She was interrupted by a gunshot, the glass in the open door exploding right next to her face.

  30. MOBILE SURGERY

  John

  A bang and the sound of shattered glass. Everyone hit the floor. Maggie screamed.

  Dave yelled for Amy and ran to her, pulling her away from the door, telling her to get down.

  John risked a look through a side window. NON agent Josaline Pussnado’s black sedan was parked behind them, engine running, headlights illuminating twin horizontal shafts of glistening raindrops. She was standing behind the open driver’s side door, wet shirt plastered against her bosom, aiming a pistol. She fired again, then moved toward the open door of the RV, shooting all the way like the goddamned Terminator, rain steaming off the gun. John ducked. Windows shattered along the length of the RV as her bullets whistled through.

  From behind John, a female voice said, “HERE!” and there was Joy, running out from Marconi’s office in the back. She had in her hand the obsidian spear that had been leaning in the corner. She tossed it to him.

  John hefted it, felt its weight, then sprinted up toward the door. He leaped over Dave, who was still on the floor, shielding Amy with his enormous body. John was far from proficient when it came to spears, but you go to war with the weapons you have.

  He leaned out of the door. Agent Pussnado hadn’t so much as changed her clothes since Ted put an assault rifle round through her sternum—her white shirt looked like she’d had a mishap carrying a punchbowl. John found the scorched hole in her shirt, just off-center from the row of buttons between her perfect breasts. That would be his target.

  He flung the spear with all his might, the shaft whizzing through the rain. The obsidian blade plunged itself into Pussnado’s chest, right into what John was sure was her still-healing wound.

  She stumbled back and stopped shooting, but did not die. The agent looked down, let out a groan of annoyance like she was having just the worst day, and tugged the spear out of her chest. She tossed it aside, reloaded her gun, and started walking toward the RV again.

  John pulled the door closed and yelled, “Get us out of here!” to no one in particular.

  Joy shoved past him. She threw herself into the driver’s seat and started the engine. “Hold on!”

  They rumbled out onto the main road, Pussnado’s bullets clanking off the rear of the RV. When the shots stopped, John got a look in one of the side mirrors and saw the agent hobbling back into her sedan, intending to continue the pursuit. If nothing else, John hoped NON remembered her at bonus time.

  Amy

  The sound of Maggie wailing in the back was the worst thing Amy had ever heard. Pain and terror and helplessness, a plaintive wail that was absolutely raw and absolutely real. Amy and David clumsily climbed to their feet. David—who looked anxious but clearly was not hearing what Amy heard, glanced back that direction, then looked nervously at Joy, who was pushing the RV to its limits down dark, submerged streets.

  Amy uttered a question that, considering the context, sounded ridiculously casual. “So, uh, where are you from?”

  Joy, who was hunched over the steering wheel as if she could make the sluggish RV go faster with body language, smiled.

  “You’re sweet. Phrasing the question that way. I can tell you’re cool.”

  John stepped toward them, with that look on his face like he was beginning to puzzle something out. Without a word, he held out his hand. Joy knew what he was doing; she took her right hand off the wheel and held it out to him. John examined it like he was admiring an engagement ring.

  Four of Joy’s fingers came off in his hand. While John held them, they transformed back into one of those worker bug things, which sat calmly on his palm.

  David let out a long breath that carried with it the word, “Ooooookay.”

  Joy, trying to steer with her partial hand, said, “I do kind of need that back.”

  John handed the fudge roach back to Joy. It crawled into place and became fingers again.

  John said, “Well, that actually makes more sense than any of the other possibilities. At some point during the lost weekend, I learned how to control a flock of fuckroaches. That’s all. Must have learned to train them or something.”

  I said, “Is there a, uh, larva in there…”

  “No.”

  “Why can’t we see through the disguise?”

  Joy said, “Because you don’t want to, dummy.”

  Amy said, “And you forced them to take the form of a Korean porn star. So you could do what with her, exactly?”

  Joy said, “Ew, no. That would not be cool.”

  David said, “And we, uh, trust her to drive the bus?”

  Joy said, “It’s not that hard. If people aren’t distracting you.”

  “That’s actually not what I—”

  Maggie howled again and Marconi shouted from the back that he needed their help.

  They ran to the back, where Maggie’s mother was trying to hold the little girl still while Marconi tended to her. Blood was everywhere—it covered the narrow sofa and had splattered onto the floor. Amy couldn’t imagine that tiny body even having that much blood in it.

  Amy yelled back toward Joy, “You’re taking us to a hospital, right?”

  Me

  Marconi’s tan suit looked like he’d just gotten home from a double shift in a butcher shop. Beads of sweat covered his forehead.

  He said, “We can’t keep her still.”

  The squealing maggot was thrashing around … and growing. The goddamned sulfur pellets were still burning through its flesh and I thought that if Hell was a real place, I now knew exactly what it smelled like.
>
  Marconi said to the half-eaten Loretta, “All right. Run into my office, through that door there. On my desk is a large stone bowl. On the shelf to the right of it is a glass jar full of sand. Bring them both to me.”

  To John, he said, “Hold her still.” Marconi had a long pair of forceps that he’d been using to try to fish out the sizzling pellets.

  To me, he said, “I tried to cut the wound wider to grant us better access, but her skin snapped the blade off the scalpel. Utterly impenetrable. Then I tried to extract the projectiles…”

  He shook his head and handed me the forceps.

  I said, “What the hell are you doing? No. This is … no.”

  “Mr. Wong, I cannot see the patient. I’m seeing a little girl with an abdominal wound.”

  “I am not a doctor!”

  “You believe a doctor would be more qualified to perform this operation? You’re locating the projectiles and digging them out. They are not difficult to find—they are sizzling and glowing like miniature suns.”

  That part was even truer than he knew; the creature’s skin was translucent, it looked like a dirty plastic tarp wrapped tightly around twenty gallons of Vaseline. I could see four pellets, each the size of a pea, burning their way down to various depths. The worst was about two inches down.

  Start with the deepest first.

  John leaned over the monster with his forearms on either side of the surgical site, trying to at least keep the little patch I was working on stabilized.

  Loretta came back with the bowl and the jar. Marconi poured the sand into the bowl and set it next to me—a place to set the burning projectiles where they would not ignite the interior of the RV and create a forty-sixth deadly problem for us to deal with.

  I pushed the forceps in and the maggot howled, a noise like a screeching exotic bird being forced through a long section of pipe with a sharp stick. Loretta, watching over my shoulder, gasped and wept. I didn’t want to imagine what she was hearing.

  I had to try to force the wound wider to get the forceps around the sizzling projectile. Impossible—the skin was like thick leather, I could change the shape of the wound, but not make it bigger. Then, when I got the instrument deep enough, I found I couldn’t really squeeze the burning ball because the grabby parts at the end of the forceps were the wrong shape to grip a sphere—it kept slipping every time I squeezed, and the maggot howled louder every time I missed.