Infected Page 94

The newly hatched Triangle attempted to stand on floppy tentacle legs. It looked very wrong and odd, because the legs had no rigidity. They weren’t at all like an insect’s skinny, multijointed legs or an animal’s muscular limbs, but something new and different. With a shake and a continuing wobble, the creature rose up on the tentacles; once up, the pyramid point stood about a foot off the ground.

The y will gr o w ,

the y will grow.

The tail that had anch.o.r.ed itself in Fatty Patty’s body dangled limply from the center of the Triangle, a weak limp-d.i.c.k appearance, dripping blood and pale slime. It hung down to the floor, where the last inch or two lay unmoving on the carpet. The newly hatched creature stood there on unsure legs, its clicking noises loud and distinctive.

Fatty Patty let out a small scream as the three Triangles on her stom

ach broke loose almost simultaneously. They sprang out like vicious jack-in-the-boxes, streaming trails of blood and pus as they came down in different parts of the room.

One flew through the air and landed on the couch to Perry’s left, as if it had just stopped by to watch the Lions game on a frosty fall Sunday afternoon. He got a much better look at this one. Its pus- and bloodcovered skin was no longer blue but a pockmarked, translucent black. He could see strange, alien organs inside, something fluttering spastically that must have served as a heart, and some other colored bits of flesh, the purpose of which he wouldn’t dare venture a guess. The end of the tail had landed on his leg — it moved a little, leaving a slime trail on Perry’s jeans. The tail’s end was ragged and torn, slowly leaking purple blood. That must be why they thrust so hard to escape her; they had to separate from the tail, most of which was left behind in Fatty Patty, an umbilical cord and safety cable they no longer needed now that they were free of her incubatory body.

The Triangle struggled to lift itself up, but one tentacle-leg slipped between the couch cus.h.i.+ons. Perry gazed down at it with the strobe light of emotions still flas.h.i.+ng at MTV-video speed. He felt a primitive urge to smash it, while simultaneously he felt compelled to gently lift the newborn from the couch, hold it adoringly, and set it on the floor to walk for the first time, beaming down at it with the proud smile of a new parent.

Turn her o v er , turn her over.

The command yanked Perry from his maddening emotional conflict. “What did you say?”

Turn her o v er .

The y ar e hatching.

They wanted him to roll her over so the Triangles on each a.s.s cheek could hatch properly. He looked at Patty’s shuddering body, now covered with blood, pus, vomit and purple slime.

She had ceased all movement. Her eyes were glazed and fixed open, her eyebrows raised, and her face frozen in a sneer of terror. She looked almost dead. Caterpillar dead. All hosts probably died — it made much more sense than having the ex-host in a position to kill weak hatchlings. What had finally done her in? Some toxin? Screaming mental overload?

That thought crystallized Perry’s emotions into two camps, polarized his hatred of the Triangles and the overflow euphoria at the hatching. He pushed back the happiness, the joy — those emotions weren’t his, and he didn’t want them in his head anymore.

Turn her OVER.

Turn her OVER NOW.

The mindscream slammed his attention back to the dead Fatty Patty, and suddenly he knew how they had killed her. He recognized the look on her face and the whimpering noises she made, realized why she’d just lain there as the things ripped free from her body, why she didn’t put up a fight. It was because an all-out mindscream had paralyzed her.

They’d screamed so loud, it killed her.

Perry jumped off the couch and knelt next to her body, His knees slipped a little in the thin film of puke/blood/pus/purple that coated the carpet. He moved quickly; he didn’t want another mindscream, one that night be bad enough to make his brains drip out his ears like a McDonald’s Gray-Matter Shake.

Turn her over, the y are hatching.

The y are hatching!

Perry put his hands on her shoulder and pushed, only to find that instead of rolling over she just slid across the muck. She was dead weight, pardon the pun.

Repet.i.tive clicking noises filled the room. Some came fast, some slow; all had different pitches and volumes. He could feel his Triangles growing impatient; another mindscream was rapidly approaching, the crack of the master’s whip on the slave who can’t perform. The power had changed hands once again.

He put his bad knee on her left shoulder and reached across her dead body. He grabbed high up on her right arm. He pulled back on the arm, slowly turning her. She flumped onto her stomach, her t.i.ts squis.h.i.+ng out like half-inflated inner tubes.

Free from the weight, the Triangles on her a.s.s wasted no time. They thrust only a few times before ripping free in a great gout of blood, an o.r.g.a.s.mic finish to their necrophilic s.e.x/birth. One flew out at an angle, hitting the kitchen table before falling to the floor. The other sailed upward in a steep arc, flying toward the lampshade. Like a LeBron James

jumper swis.h.i.+ng through the hoop, the Triangle slid through the lampshade’s open top. It hit the illuminated bulb, first with a sudden sizzle, then a loud crack as the tiny body exploded. Black goo splattered against the inside of the lampshade, a wet silhouette as it slowly dripped toward the floor.

Thanks for saving me the trouble, Perry thought.

A wave of anger and depression crashed over him, overflow emotions again, fighting for mental s.p.a.ce with his own feelings of villainous satisfaction at the newborn Triangle’s untimely death.