a/n: There are stories you write for an audience, and stories you write because you just can't get them out of your head otherwise. This is firmly a case of the latter. If anyone reads this, bravo. I'm glad it wasn't only a waste of time.
You'll enjoy this story a lot more if you've looked up any of the mythology behind the Cloverfield movie, and the viral marketing campaign that went into it—particularly the element of Seabed's Nectar, a Japanese soft drink additive in-universe with miraculous, disturbing properties. The infant monster that attacked the city and its parasites became the size they were because they'd been exposed to the ingredient over time and became addicted. They weren't the only ones who'd gotten a taste.
Jamie Lascano doesn't remember much of what happened that night, the night Rob Hawkins had his ill-fated going-away party, when Manhattan was invaded and destroyed by a monster from a horror movie. At the time, bizarrely, she had thought she was seeing things more clearly and vividly than ever before: whatever weird shit Teddy had sent her in that stupid package to "not eat" always made her feel like her brain was exploding when she ate it. One drop on her tongue would be sufficient to bring her thoughts and emotions and actions to a fever pitch. For all that he was a worthless, lying shit of a boyfriend, Jamie had to admit Teddy Hanssen had delivered one hell of a breakup present—and all from his bullshit "prison" at Tagruato, the drilling site where he'd claimed to be held captive so he wouldn't have to admit to her that he was a CHEATING BASTARD.
Jamie's recollection of what she did on her last evening in Manhattan as part of this mystery-ingredient bender is fuzzy in hindsight, a freakish blur occasionally interspersed with random, clear bursts of memory that don't make sense. The monster attack definitely happened, she knows, and so did the parasites, and the bombs and the helicopters. That's all stuff people are talking about on the news.
But it's not all that Jamie remembers. And most of the rest, well...she really wishes she didn't. The things she saw and did that night give her awful nightmares, that make her physically ache, like a symptom of withdrawal.
—
She remembers getting ready for the party that night: polishing off the last of the forbidden stuff in the foil wrapper with manic glee, then taping one last video to put up on her and Teddy's neglected website before she went out. She'd gone to Rob's with Marlena and the girls, drunk cup after plastic cup of Everclear mixed with some weird Japanese drink, Slusho!, that Jason had brought imported by the case. Supposedly, Rob's new job had something to do with marketing it, but all Jamie cared about was the way her body thrummed in pleasure every time she took a drink. She was having the time of her fucking life.
After that, Jamie thinks she danced until she passed out. She remembers people acting tense for a lot of the party, some nonsense having to do with Beth and Rob, and that there were people warning her over and over that she needed to calm the fuck down. She laughed them off, ignoring everyone, which is the last thing she remembers before the disaster.
—
Jamie's next flash of memory is waking up to the sounds of screaming. Marlena's cousin was trying to drag her up off the couch while everyone else was running in a panic for the door. People were shouting about an explosion, another Al-Qaeda attack on the city, and everyone thought it was important to clear the building. For some reason, Jamie was more upset about being woken up than the potential threat of a terrorist attack. When Marlena's cousin shook her by the shoulders, Jamie screamed as loudly as she could, saying that she wanted to be left alone. Her voice must have been louder than she thought, or else there was something strange on her face, because the other girl backed off immediately and ran away without ever looking back.
—
The next thing Jamie remembers is being trapped alone in the dark, crushed beneath a pile of debris and dust that fell on top of her. Her limbs and torso were trapped, immobile, against the ground beneath a caved-in mountain. She might have been in Rob's apartment still, or else wandered off somewhere else, but whatever place she was at had obviously gone down violently with her still inside. Jamie hollered and screamed for help for what felt like an eternity, a wash of terror building up inside, until she was positively manic in her need to get the fuck out of here.
Somehow, her fits of struggling eventually managed to shift around some of the layers of plaster and concrete that buried her. One arm got loose at last, and she one-handedly dragged aside some of the enormous chunks of wreckage that were pinning the rest of her body. With inhuman strength, Jamie fought her way across the horde of rubble, shoving and clawing a path through chunks of building material that weighed more than her whole body. She finally emerged in a warped stairwell, working her way down to ground level in total darkness. She was still too drunk to walk in a straight line, and thinks she must have sliced her feet on a few pieces of fallen cement before she made it out. She had to rely heavily on the handrail for support, and was forced to kick down the door to get outside when she finally reached the bottom of the stairwell leading to the street.
—
Jamie remembers walking slowly through the chaos, ignoring shouted orders from soldiers telling her she needed to hurry up and get to safety, wherever that was. Pedestrians were running past her on all sides, many in states of total panic, but Jamie felt no fear any longer. She was tired and annoyed, still more drunk than sober, and she took the news that a monster was attacking Manhattan with the same anger and belligerence she'd felt the night she opened Teddy's fucking package only to find out he was too much of a pussy to break up with her to her face.
Military planes roared over head. Jamie screamed obscenities at them, cursing and swearing at Teddy and her fucking friends and god for abandoning her here, when she was the one who was too good for them in the first place. At one point, a solider approached her and grabbed her by the arm, telling her that she needed to evacuate with everyone else. Livid, Jamie unthinkingly reached up with her free hand and yanked him off her: effortlessly, she broke his hand, feeling the bones in his wrist snap between her fingers. She was done listening to men who thought they had the right to control her and boss her around. After that, she thinks she ran off into the streets to get away from him, but she isn't sure. It's all a mess of uncertainty and confusion.
—
Nearly last thing she remembers clearly is encountering a swarm of those freaky parasites, the ones that had apparently ridden atop the gigantic monster and fallen throughout the city during its rampage. She had watched, confused, as a horde of people ran screaming in all directions away from an innocuous-looking subway terminal near the boundary of the city limits. Following the runners streamed half a dozen mutant crab-looking bug things, that were easily the size of big dogs. The creatures were gross, but Jamie was pissed and worked up enough with manic energy that she wasn't scared. She ran forward at once to help a screaming woman, who had been jumped by two of the disgusting insect creatures baring their jaws. They'd tackled their vicitm to the ground by the time Jamie arrived, maddened with exhilarating rage that suddenly made her desperate to kill something living with her bare hands.
Driven by this vicious instinct, Jamie seized one of the monsters from the woman's legs and tossed it away from her like a ragdoll. The creature went skidding and screeching along the pavement, scrabbling on six legs to regain its balance, and it landed far to not be an immediate problem. Whirling back around, Jamie seized upon the other parasite, which was now biting into the flesh of the woman's shoulder. Jamie seized two of its legs in one hand, then tore them free of its body, causing the thing to screech in pain and loosen its hold. Jamie kicked it aside with a yell and stomped on its head to shut it up, smashing her foot down on it again and again until the monster's skull was completely caved in.
When the other parasite rushed at her, recovered, she was ready for it. She pried the monster forcibly away from her torso when it launched itself at her, jaws parted to rip at her flesh. With a triumphant scream she tore its body cleanly in half with her hands, throwing the bloodied pieces away from her to the ground. Unthinkingly, she licked her lips when her face was sprayed with droplets of blood, heart pounding with adrenaline and something else. The woman she had saved, probably too horrified at what she had seen to be grateful, shrieked something unintelligible at Jamie and took off running after the others.
In hindsight, Jamie doesn't know why she didn't follow her. Something compelled her to stay in place. Unmoving, Jamie ran her tongue over her dry lips again, this time deliberately—as if to test something she'd tasted, or thought she tasted, in the creature's blood. Her whole body shuddered, in a maddeningly familiar way, though she couldn't have said where she had felt the same sensation before.
Without thinking—if Jamie had thought about what she was going to do next, she'd have been too utterly revolted to continue—she knelt down to one of the halves of the dead parasite she'd torn in half. She dipped her finger cautiously into the pool of slick blood now oozing out of it, then raised the finger to her mouth and sucked it clean. An unknown switch flipped inside her brain. She needed more.
With intense fervor, she started lapping at the blood that had gotten on her palms and the backs of her hands already, feeling a craving for something indescribable within the liquid regardless of its sickening taste. She didn't stop when her hands were clean. Instead she began to scoop up blood from the ground in her hands, bringing it to her mouth and gulping it like she'd drown if she didn't get more. When the puddle was too shallow to scoop with her hands she began tearing pieces from the creature's lifeless body instead, sucking the flesh greedily dry, again and again until she was so full she thought her stomach would burst. Jamie screamed with laughter, leaping to her feet with renewed energy. She clumsily wiped her face on one tattered jacket sleeve, already beginning to run. She felt more amazing than she ever had in her life.
—
Sprinting the seven straight miles to the helicopters at the edge of the city was laughably easy, with the frantic pulse of energy now pumping through her veins. She wasn't even out of breath when she got there. The soldiers directing evacuees into the rescue choppers stared openly at her, at her bloodstained clothes and matted hair. They seemed unsettled by the intensity of her grin.
Finally, they ordered her into line with everyone else and asked her what her name was. She isn't certain, now, what she said to them in reply, but she thinks she told them it was Jamie Hanssen.
Jamie screamed for a Slusho! drink as the helicopter was taking off, startling the other passengers, who told her sternly that she was delirious and needed to rest. After they calmed her down, Jamie's only memory of the trip is a blur of light and sound. She was asleep by the time the bombs went off in Manhattan, dreaming soundly of whales and old lovers and tankers drilling beneath the ocean floor.
These were the last peaceful dreams she would have in a long, long time.