Sobriety suddenly swam its way to the surface, spurred on by a horror-fueled fight-or-flight response. This was a whole ’nother ball game from the rashes, a completely different league than the thick orange blisters. His body hadn’t made this thing, couldn’t have-where the hell had it come from?
Perry snarled. The growling voice of a rabid animal escaped his throat. He not-so-gently slid the fork under the bloody blue triangle. The metal tines scraped against his own raw flesh. He’d never felt pain so no feel no kill no kill pure, so dense, so all-encompassing, but he ignored it completely, focusing instead on the abomination buried in his shin.
Play through the pain.
He felt the tines of the fork meet the slightly giving resistance of the triangle’s stem. He gently fished around until the fork slid all the way through, its red-smeared prongs poking their little heads out from underneath the triangle’s other side.
The blood-covered table felt cold and sticky under his calf. Perry raised the fork. The triangle seemed to lift easily. The stem itself, however, was another affair, far more solid and firm than before. It would take strength to pull this one out.
Sweat poured from his face as pain sheared through his leg. It was slammingly intense, but he held it in check with the promise of purging this abomination from his body. Perry yanked up hard on the no kill no kill fork, but the stem held firm. Blood spilled anew from the leg, splashing into the puddle that blazed red against the white linoleum floor.
His head lolled to the right. Spots appeared before his eyes. He scrunched his eyes shut and shook his head, blinking fast as his equilibrium and vision returned. He’d almost passed out. Had he lost that much blood? His head started to spin-he didn’t know if it was from the Wild Turkey or blood loss. He felt control slipping away. please no no no no no no no
He jammed the fork in deeper, allowing more of the tines to poke through the other side, enough for him to get a decent hold with his free hand. He held the fork as if it were a curling bar and he was ripping off a few quick reps. His meaty biceps twitched in anticipation. He took a breath and
NO NO NO NO NO NO
yanked.
He heard a ripping sound and felt a blast of searing nuclear fire rage through his leg. Something in the stem snapped. Perry’s momentum carried him backward over his chair and spilled him onto the floor.
Blood had trickled before-now it gushed, this time from the back of the leg. A wave of gray washed across his eyes.
Have to stop the bleeding. I’m not gonna die on the kitchen floor…
He pulled off his T-shirt and leaned forward, ass and legs spreading blood all across the linoleum. Perry wrapped the shirt around his gushing calf, tied a granny knot, then yanked it tight with all his strength. His short scream filled the small apartment.
He rolled to his back, body tightly tense with agony, the gray washing over him yet again. He fell limp.
His chest moved in regular breaths as he lay on the blood-smeared floor.
35.
The five remaining organisms conducted a “poll” of sorts. Following deeply ingrained instructions, they measured densities of thyroxine and triiodothyronine, hormones that stimulate the metabolic rate. Both hormones are produced by the thyroid gland, which is located in the neck region of all vertebrates. By measuring the densities of these chemicals in the bloodstream, the five organisms detected which of their number was closest to the neck.
Or, more accurately, which was closest to the brain.
The triangle on the host’s back, the one on the spine, just below the shoulder blades, came out the winner. This new discovery stimulated additional specialized cell development from that triangle-like a stealthy snake approaching an unknowing victim, a new tendril slowly grew along the spinal column toward the brain.
Once there, the tendril split into hundreds of long strands, each microscopically thin. The tendrils sought out the brain’s convergence zones. These zones act like mental switching stations, providing access to information and linking that information to other relevant data. The tendrils sought out specific areas: the thalamus, the amygdala, the caudate nucleus, the hypothalamus, the hippocampus, the septum, and particular areas of the cerebral cortex. The tendrils’ growth was very specific, very directed.
Sentience was limited but progressing-they had only just begun to think, to be aware of themselves. Words had floated about their environment, and they had picked up a few, but with the growth into the brain they would learn more and learn them quickly.
They had tried to stop the host, but their messages were weak. They simply didn’t have enough information to communicate properly. That was changing; soon they would be strong enough to make him listen.
36.
wake up we hungry
Waking up on a linoleum floor was getting to be an annoying habit. His head hurt again. This time, however, he immediately identified the pain as a hangover.
The kitchen lights glared in his eyes. He saw flies behind the clear plastic that sat in front of the fluorescent lights. The bugs had flown up there, looking to do whatever it is that bugs want to do with lights, then they got cooked, burned to a crispity-crunchity finish.
His leg ached. His stomach grumbled. Loudly. First thing in his mind (besides the bugs) was the fact that he hadn’t really eaten anything in three days. Depending, of course, on how long he’d been out this time. No sunlight filtered in from the living room, so obviously it was sometime in the evening.
Perry looked down at his leg. The bleeding had stopped. The shirt had gone from athletic gray to a sickly dried brown, a tie-dyed T-shirt suitable for Marilyn Manson.
Dried blood smears coated the linoleum floor, blackish brown against the shiny white. It looked as if a three-year-old had come in from playing in the rain, covered in puddle mud, then rolled on the floor.
His leg hurt with the dull, throbbing, pulsating pain of a recent wound struggling to heal. There was no sign of the Big Six acting up; from those areas he felt no itching, no pain. That didn’t make Perry feel any better; there was no telling what the little bastards were up to now.
“Big Six?” A rather unhealthy smile tickled the corners of Perry’s mouth. “That’s not quite right. I got another one. You’re not the Big Six anymore-now you’re the Starting Five.”
He wanted to find the fork, the one he’d used to pull the creature from his body. He wanted to see what the blue thing looked like when it wasn’t latched on to his leg like a suckling kangaroo imbedded in the pouch of its mother.
His leg not only hurt like a bitch, but felt funny in a way he couldn’t quite identify. What had the Triangle done on the way out?
Perry rolled to his stomach and struggled to rise without putting weight on his bad leg. He hopped up on his good leg and leaned on the counter, then scanned the floor for the fork. It had slid against the refrigerator.
He took one careful hop, leaned on the other counter, then stooped to pick up the fork.
“I hope it hurt, you fucker,” Perry said quietly as he examined his grisly trophy.
The Triangle looked like flaky, dried-up black seaweed wrapped around the fork in a permanent death embrace. He could barely make out the once-triangular shape, as it was now a lifeless hunk of crap without form or function.
But it wasn’t the body that held his rapt attention or made his jaw hang open with astonishment and an additional serving of fear. It wasn’t the body at all.