Roughly a dozen human beings remained alive and breathing, fourteen if you counted the ones with eggs in their chest cavities, all dressed in church clothes, as if garbed for their own funeral.

Three unconscious Koreans sprawled over the folding chairs with quills stuck in their bodies, one laid out on the carpet. Two of them, a short man in a suit and a woman, both with matching hornrim spectacles, prayed with Martin's wife, currently crying on her knees as she clutched her wailing baby.

Two others concealed themselves in the opposite corner, guarded by the armed Indian, and more behind the kitchen wall where I couldn't see them. Calvin, I presumed, hid behind a counter. The rest, it would appear, had been moved to the hallway.

I stomped up to my foe. "Dear aunt, before we engage in this unpleasant business, let me preface by saying that we would not be having this fight if you allowed me to share minds."

"And let me begin by telling you that I thought your idea for a human farm was fine, provided you didn't take any of mine."

"Then I am sorry, aunt, but I must do this."

I leaped, slashing her across the face with the blade.

Ssorzechola whipped out her tail, smashing me into the plasma TV. The screen shattered, its plastic frame dropping off the wall and cracking on the floor.

I got up from the carpet and tried to stab her, but she shoved me into a bookcase full of bibles and hymnals, scattering the tattered red and blue hardbacks all over the carpet.

Kumar and the other twin American dragged an unconscious older woman out the door. Good for them, I thought.

A fully mature Ss'sik'chtokiwij like Grandma has four working arms. Two large ones, and two smaller ones for cocooning and more delicate operations. Before she died, Mother had a pair coming in, but she had some sort of neurological disorder that prevented her lower set from working.

Ssorzechola had six. Two large arms on each side, and two working smaller arms.

For this reason, when I tried to stab her in the head, she could hold my head with two claws as she punched me with the other two.

In desperation, I slashed at one of the arms holding me, but she caught my arm with a smaller limb, supporting it with a larger one that tried to twist mine out of joint. I roared in pain as my shoulder dislocated.

Crack! Crack!

I flinched, thinking it had been my arm, but instead Ssorzechola shrieked as she whirled to face the brown figure with the gun.

Distracted by the attack, her two claws let go of me. I took advantage of the situation, cutting off her arm at the joint. Acid blood and worms sprayed out.

She shrieked in pain, throwing me into the low wall dividing the kitchen and the worship center. Dishes shattered.

Ssorzechola punched me several times, then grabbed my arm, twisting it painfully. "Let's see how you like having one of your arms severed from your body, you disrespectful little ssogdisfi!"

A bullet cracked into Ssorzechola's shell. She turned her back on me, tail flinging me into the kitchen. My body crashed into a cabinet.

The toddler crouched in a corner between an electric stove and a waterless dishwasher. I gave him a little wave, climbing up on a counter.

Kumar pointed his gun in Ssorzechola's face, pulling the trigger, but the hammer clicked on an empty chamber.

Ssorzechola shot him full of quills and left him there.

I climbed the kitchen wall.

Once up on the ceiling, I could see how Ssorzechola had entered the room so silently. Instead of using spit or blood, she had used a swarm of metal devouring insects. Although troubling, I mostly regarded these as an annoyance.

Timing my jump with care, I leapt onto the big Ss'sik'chtokiwij's back, raising my weapon for a brutal kill.

I had a sudden change of heart, retracting the blade. "I am sorry I sliced off your arm, dear aunt. But you would understand if we shared minds."

"I will not! You are Xulrubdan!"

"Me? Diseased? What of those things you vomited on that human?" I swung around her neck, grabbing the sides of her face as I extended worms of my own.

Yes, worms. While the main body of the Wooby Worm is like a flatworm, it has smaller separate growths resembling earthworms.

Maria said the Wooby Worm is like love. Both involve risk, resulting in either great reward, or great pain.

A little strange, but you have to understand that I had my claws busy holding on to Ssorzechola's head and neck so I didn't fall off, and I didn't have any other way to get my worms into her mouth...

I kissed her.

You try initiating a mind to mind contact with a communications organ built into your upper palate without the use of your hands without `Frenching' someone. To describe this action as `lesbian' is unfair for a multitude of reasons. Just for starters: Neither one of us derives pleasure from the act, it's merely communication.

Secondly, no males in our species. The only way a Ss'sik'chtokiwij can be homosexual is laying eggs in another Ss'sik'chtokiwij, which would not only be difficult, but would also be akin to a pregnant human trying to give birth with steel underwear locked and fastened over their crotch. The baby would basically be entombed.

I parted her lips, and, for the briefest of seconds, I connected with Ssorzechola's mind.

We sat on large purple boulders on another planet, a lovely place unlike anything I'd ever known, perhaps even unlike anything Ssorzechola had ever known, as in a racial memory or a wonderful fantasy.

The boulders stood in a swamp filled with strange plants resembling red pirouline chocolate sticks, topped with orbs of seeds like pods of lotus plants. A kind of albino reptilian gorilla with quadruple eyes loped around in packs around the rock outcrops, devouring rock fungus.

Three mustard yellow moons, speckled with white, red and brown, hung in a beautiful dark green sky. Ssorzechola's happy place, apparently, somewhere she could eat and breed and be at peace.

I noticed, with sadness, that her happy place included my mutilated corpse.

A fog drifted through this swamp, obscuring everything around us. When it cleared, we stood inside a massive warehouse sized trailer on the base, filled with socmavaj eggs and human skeletons.

Ssorzechola sat on a raised dais in this strange chamber, smiling as Noah led a long line of people to her place of enthronement.

When they neared Ssorzechola, men, women and children dropped to their knees, meekly offering their open mouths for impregnation. Some even sang songs of praise to Ssorzechola before offering themselves.

A woman pushed forward her child as an offering, which Noah slashed across the neck, slicing the boy into pieces like a chef making sushi. He presented the bloody slices to Ssorzechola for a meal.

Again, as in her first fantasy, I lay dead, but now Grandmother and Hissandra stood humbled behind the dais.

Ssorzechola raised her claw and Noah vomited worms on the both of them.

The worms entered their bodies, then, like a master puppeteer with marionettes, Ssorzechola conducted the movements of the two, causing Hissandra to die at my Grandmother's claws.

Ssorzechola sent an army of young Ss'sik'chtokiwij after Grandmother, making them attack and kill each other.

And you call me diseased, I thought.

She must have heard my thoughts, for that's the last I saw into her mind.

Ssorzechola bit down. Hard.

The single most agonizing pain I have ever experienced.

Although I've had injuries to my brain, brain tissue is not that sensitive. I have heard of people going shopping with knives stuck in their head, oblivious to the injury.

Even when I had a bullet in my spine, never pain this bad. Not as many nerves. I'd compare this to a human being getting stabbed in the crotch.

The connection broke, and I came away with blood gushing from my mouth.

I should have expected it. My actions had been about as bad as telling someone about Jesus after punching them in the face, but I had to do something to try to stop her.

Ssorzechola, upset at being violated, lifted me above her head, throwing me through an aluminum trailer wall.

My head slammed against a bunk bed, and I hit the floor unconscious.

After the initial period of darkness, I had a terrifying vision that caused extra lubrication to come pouring out between my joints as sweat.

In the dream, I lay in a much abused hexagonal tunnel with damaged flooring, leaking pipes, and a caved in roof, wires and other pipes hanging down above my head.

Rebecca and her brother were with me, Rebecca holding her doll, telling me how much she loved me.

An eerie fog drifted through the tunnel, obscuring a dark female figure bearing a large machine gun.

I couldn't make out the human's features, except for the large amounts of flowing curly hair.

The stranger slapped a magazine into the machine gun, pointing the muzzle to my head. Her eyes glowed white as she growled in a slurry demonic voice, "Get away from them, you bitch."

I tried to run away, but she pulled the trigger, shooting me again and again.

I screamed, falling backwards in slow motion.

When I awoke, I found Ssorzechola basically `wrapping things up,' Sunny, Basarthra, and the three people from the back corner already cocooned. I didn't see the others right away because Ssorzechola had either killed, impregnated them and hidden the bodies, or Kumar had secreted them away to a safe location. Plus parts of broken wall blocked my view.

I stuck my head out the hole and found Ssorzechola finishing up a cocoon in the corner near the entrance.

Too late, I thought. I failed. Ssorzechola is just too strong.

I knew I couldn't defeat her by reason or brute force. I needed a plan, something that didn't involve blowing myself up, unless absolutely necessary.

First order of business: Rescuing Rebecca.

Not daring to `go another round' with Ssorzechola again, I opened a register, searching the duct for my friend's scent.

Increasingly glad that my sense of smell had recovered or I would have been inconsolable.

A yard down, I bumped into Ssavzotvi. "Ruth! Where's Rebecca?"

"I don't know."

"How about Maria? Have you seen Maria?"

The answer was no. "She told me to watch you and make sure Ssorzechola didn't do anything to you while you slept.

I half laughed, half wept. "Thank you, dear friend."

Ssavzotvi gasped. "Your mouth is bleeding!"

I nodded. "I have experienced rejection."

Ssavzotvi's jaw distended in shock, like I had revealed some planet shattering theological truth. Perhaps I had. "...Maria told me to take you to the Inga. She said you would know what to do."

I swallowed, tasting some of my own blood as I did so, a chalky unpleasant taste. "Inga?"

I followed Ssavzotvi to another vent cover. Beyond, a blonde, heavy set older woman cowered. The patch on her light gray overalls said she belonged to the cafeteria staff.

When I climbed out of the vent, she let out a loud shriek, jowls and double chin wobbling.

"Quiet!" I hissed. "Do you want that big thing to come in here and kill you?" I would have used proper terminology, but doubted she would understand.

The woman cried, praying for God to deliver her. A strangely accented voice, Germanic sounding, possibly Swedish.

I approached, folding my claws and bowing my head, praying that she would trust me and for Ssorzechola not to attack her.

"What are you? Some sort of bug? A Christian bug?"

"I am a Ss'sik'chtokiwij. And yes, I am a follower of Christ, like you." I sighed. "We need to get you out of here."

"How? That thing...!"

I gestured to the vent. "Can you crawl in there?"

She let out a nervous laugh. "Oh no no no! I am much too big. I am terrified for such small spaces. I will get stuck!"

I disagreed, but then again, I could squeeze myself in ways a human cannot (in the words of Lewis Carroll, `Shut (themselves) up like a telescope.') "You have two options. You can crawl down there and take your chances, or we can attempt something twice as dangerous."

"Oh please! Anything else. I have much clausterphobias. Plus I see a monsters down there."

"That's Ruth. My dear friend. She won't hurt you."

It didn't convince her. "Sorry, but just the same I would much rather not be doing that."

"Fine. Then listen carefully. I want you to follow close to me, and when I tell you run, run fast!"

Inga nodded gravely.

I pushed a button labeled `Door Open', leading Inga across a carpet scattered with the collapsed chairs, broken vases, and slim hymn books splattered with blood and cocooning slime. The air still smelled of gunpowder, Ss'sik'chtokiwij secretions and kimchee.

No sign of Ssorzechola, but I knew it to be foolish to drop my guard.

As we neared the exit, someone purred behind me.

I whirled around, shoving Inga back as I once again faced my aunt.

"Run!" I barked at to woman.

I leapt at Ssorzechola, blade extended.

My enemy caught my arms as I raised the blade to stab her in the head, then made a couple clicking sounds with her mouth.

A swarm of small insects squirmed out of several places in her exoskeleton, jumping onto me.

I tried to break free from her grip, but before I could, the insects crawled into the hole in my blade weapon.

I escaped my aunt's grip, but when I again attempted to stab her in the head, the blade retracted and would not come back out.

I struck Ssorzechola in the head with the now blunted weapon, but the metal pieces fell apart with a bunch of metal devouring bugs attached.

Ssorzechola grinned. "Oops. It looks like your little toy is broken."

She stabbed Inga in the stomach with her tail, throwing her into a wall. "Honestly, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik. Did you really think you could sneak a human out of here without me noticing?"

She hurled me into a display case containing pictures of people from the bible group and family, religious plaques and model junk boats. Broken glass everywhere.

My aunt loomed over me, breathing her hot stinky human meat breath in my face. "You never were going to farm those humans for food were you?"

I made no reply. I only groaned and got into a standing position.

"What they say about you is correct, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik. You really are brain damaged."

She bashed me against the wall with her tail.

So much for her complaints about brain damage.