Kumar stood over the dead body. "I saved you the trouble of shooting yourself."
"Very, very good!" Noah shouted to Kumar as he stepped out from behind the curtains. "You come just in time. Wife has been destroyed, but I have kept a number of people, and added a few also."
Noah (reconstituted by worms) had been busy during our little conflict. Although stealthy at first, his actions had become bolder during the time of Mike's possession.
As he, I let out an angry roar, leaping at him with my claws outstretched.
Despite me being at least an inch taller than he, Noah casually knocked me to the ground with a rotary block and a hammer fist, kicking me a few feet across the floor like some disobedient toy dog.
Kumar turned the gun on me, fist tightening around the grip. "You and your friends have greatly inconvenienced our Lord."
He tilted the gun sideways a little. "You think you're sparing human life by doing this, but you really aren't. All this dead meat isn't going to keep very long. Even if you were a certified HVAC specialist, I doubt you could find the necessary equipment, or power to convert these building units into refrigerators. In a few days, we'll just have to kill again.
"It would have been more humane the way we had it. With a core of faithfully committed followers, they'd gladly volunteer to be eaten, or, just as gladly, sacrifice others to Ssorzechola..The ancient human culture of the Aztecs did a similar thing, but..." He shook his head in disgust. "So much wasted food."
He suddenly flew into a rage, storming closer, gun still aimed at my head. "This was your idea! You wanted a human farm! A limitless supply of food! We'd leave a remnant alive and breeding! It would have been like their Tyson chicken plants!"
Noah just silently watched our exchange, the movement of his lips corresponding with Kumar's like a director coaching an actor on what to say.
He and Kumar glanced at each other for a moment, then the leader resumed dragging away bodies.
Kumar pushed the gun against my dome, growling, "While you were making a mess of things in here, I was doing damage control." He pressed down harder, like he intended to stab me with the barrel. "You know how difficult it is to regain a person's trust after a stunt like that?"
He clicked the hammer back, speaking through grinding teeth. "That scrawny bastard friend of yours made things even worse. By killing Hwiyotis and H'tuizoboq, he took away the fear! We had this place contained! A few more hours and we would have had more than thirty six converts."
His grip on the gun became so tight that his knuckles whitened. "Instead, I'm killing more than a dozen people!"
I hesitated to speak. The bible says that a soft answer turns away wrath, but I had no soft answers to give him.
Beside me, Maria lay atop Mike's lifeless body, her flailing worm whips lashing in and out of his organs, drawing out whatever wiggling parasites remained in hiding. I hoped this would prevent Mike from becoming another Sunny.
Mike's weapon, lacking a live body to carry on its operations, disengaged itself, falling to the carpet. My assailant didn't seem to notice.
"You're going to fix this," Kumar threatened. "Or I'm going to blow a hole through your brain."
I did not fear my demise. I had done my best to protect my loved ones, and I had Jesus. "You have a wife and a baby. What would your wife say about what you've been doing?"
Kumar snorted in disgust. "She hates this place. She blames me for everything bad that has happened to us here. Once I get done with you and those three bastard children you're hiding, I'll pull her out of wherever she's hiding and plug her and the baby right in the skull. The bitch will have a dot on her forehead, one way or another."
"This isn't you, Kumar," Maria said.
The Indian whipped the gun around, aiming it at her. "Who the fuck are you to say what is and isn't me?"
"I know there's a good man inside there, somewhere."
Kumar fought down a sob. "No. You're wrong! You don't know what you're talking about!"
Somehow sensing this disturbance, Noah came running out of the tent where he'd been working, presumably to take back whatever progress we'd made in Kumar's heart.
Shaking with rage, Kumar growled, "Get away from me. You aren't my friend anymore."
Noah stepped closer. "Stop struggling. You weaken yourself by resisting."
Kumar pointed his weapon at him. "I only weaken your power!"
Maria extended all the worms in her body. "Come to me!"
It looked like she wore a fur coat, except alive, like a time lapse video of insects hollowing out a dead animal carcass from the inside.
With an expression of disgust, Kumar pointed the gun at Maria, firing several shots at her head.
Swarms of worms shot out, snatching each individual bullet from the air just inches from her face, flinging them to the carpet.
The gun clicked empty.
"Stay away from her," Noah urged. "She will only make the infection worse."
Kumar clenched his fists, seething with anger. "I'm tired of listening to you! You're nothing but a false prophet. You profane the name of Jesus and make him look bad by your poor example."
"Me? What about you? You have killed dozens of people with your own hands." Noah sighed. "But such is irrelevant. We both know that Ssorzechola is the only true God. You must surrender to her eventually. We all must."
"Noah, you were once a trusted friend and mentor. It is a sin to murder, but if you do not go away, and stay the hell out of my mind, I swear to God I'll do it!"
"You forget I am the Alpha Priest." Noah raised his hands like a wizard casting a spell.
Kumar screamed, clutching the sides of his head as he collapsed into a sobbing heap on the floor.
"Cover me," Maria hissed to me as she crept up to the man's trembling form.
"No!" Kumar screamed. "Stay away from me!"
"Do you want the worms removed or not?"
Kumar answered with a sob.
I sprang upon Noah like an irate Velociraptor, but he only grabbed me by the neck and tail, using my own momentum to throw me to the floor.
I tried again. He nearly broke my spine as I came crashing down on the thin carpeting, denting the aluminum underneath.
Groaning, I got up again.
As long as Noah breathed, he would prove an obstacle. He might even kill Maria.
Unfortunately my attacks were ineffectual at best.
My thoughts went directly to that weapon next to Mike's corpse.
As I made a dash for it, Noah picked up a chair and struck me in the head.
I leapt, but he knocked me aside like a baseball.
Noah snatched up the alien cannon, firing at me.
I broke into a run as a chair exploded mere inches from my torso.
I jumped and more of the neighboring room got laid bare.
He blasted a hole in the painted aluminum `curtain', but aimed carefully enough not to harm my aunt.
I circled him, the folding chairs going up around me like popcorn with each blast.
Noah got smart to my tactic, firing in an anticlockwise motion. A shot chipped a piece off my shoulder plate.
I froze in place, presenting myself as a target.
The moment his fingers clenched, I ducked, and he blew another hole through the neighbor's wall. In basketball, I believe this is called a `fake-out.'
I tried these types of strategies a few different times, moving around him in a clockwise direction, only to shift to anticlockwise to surprise him as I hurled chairs at him.
In hopes of having him blast my aunt by accident, I ran to position myself in front of the `Holy of Holies'.
Before I could reach the position, I tripped over a hole Mike had made in the floor, falling flat on my face.
"Yuk yuk yuk." Noah chuckled as he marched up to me.
So far, the only human I'd ever met with a laugh like that. I couldn't tell if it were genuine or merely a `stage laugh'.
He lowered the weapon, aimed at my head.
As his fingers curled down, I glimpsed a white streak speeding by.
Noah's eyes bulged in horror as a bloody Ss'sik'chtokiwij with a cross shaped birthmark erupted from his rib cage.
I dodged out of the way just seconds before a blast ripped a hole through the floor next to my head.
The man, possessed by the worms, could not be stopped by a mere larval attack through the heart and lungs.
Seizing my chance, I jumped up, forcing him on his back.
He tried to fight me off, blasting a ceiling light fixture to pieces in the process.
My attempts to remove the weapon failed, due to it being still attached to his arm.
Noah tried to spit worms into me, but I forced his chin back with my claw, spitting globs of acid on his weapon arm until his elbow joints, the ends of his radius and his ulna melted away, leaving me holding a severed forearm.
My other arm staved off Noah's right limb with a jagged ramming elbow. Although stronger than me, the man didn't have an exoskeleton.
He didn't scream as much as I thought he would. I supposed that came from having a worm eaten nervous system.
The worms stretched out from the ragged stump of his humerus like muscle tissue on Noah's upper arm, desperately trying to reconnect with the melted flesh.
I did the only thing I could think to do in such a situation: Turned the severed arm toward Noah's head, squeezing the fingers.
I encountered resistance, but the worms, separate from their host, seemed...weaker.
I kept applying pressure until the fingers bent.
For a moment, the man Noah once was came to the surface.
"One word:" he said, like he were reading one of his sermons. "Do it."
Then he smiled.
Technically, he'd said two words, but I didn't argue.
I blew his head to bits.
Lacking a live body, the worms sought out the nearest living target. I backed away from the corpse with haste, but they already slithered into cracks in my exoskeleton.
I yanked a few out, but couldn't stop them all. In fact, they reproduced through the process of fragmentation.
I stumbled backwards, staring with unquiet fear at the terrible struggle occurring within the dead man's ruptured chest.
I had not fully won.
During my battle with the possessed host, Aquila remained with the body, ripping at Noah's interior with her teeth and claws, and as I fought to sever the man's limb, the worms formed a tight drum-like prison around my young Ss'sik'chtokiwij friend.
Aquila fought and struggled to get out, but the worms only sealed around her body like a sheet of shrink wrap. The more she clawed at the swarming colony, the more it wrapped around her more tightly.
Ss'sik'chtokiwij have tremendous lung capacity, their exoskeleton withstanding all kinds of pressure, but I doubted even a Ss'sik'chtokiwij could withstand an onslaught like this.
But what could I do? If I tried to pull her out, the worms would get me too.
Regardless, I couldn't abandon a friend.
Maria still busied herself using whip worms to remove infestations in Kumar's internal organs. Her body seemed bigger now, exoskeleton beginning to take on the attributes of an adult Ss'sik'chtokiwij.
I could either wait for her to finish, and possibly lose Aquila, or grab Aquila now and get infected.
Praying that Maria could help both of us afterwards, I ripped through the sheet of worms with my claws, pulling the small larva free from her wormy prison.
A quarter of the worms swarmed over me and my companion, the rest quitting the body to join them.
I hurried to Maria, impatiently watching as she continued to de-worm Kumar.
Worms trailed me across the carpet, adding to the number already infesting me and Aquila's bodies.
My vision turned red. I collapsed on the floor.
When my eyes focused, I found myself in craft resembling the Pale Ones' spaceship that Grandma called home, but with different architecture.
The black and purple walls expanded as if breathing, spaghetti streamers of worms waving from ventilation ports like ribbons.
I'd been imprisoned in a glass tank along the ship's inner hallway, body completely immersed in translucent liquid.
Actually, not liquid. A sea of colorless tapeworms.
Other tanks held my fellow prisoners:
Aquila.
Kumar.
A pair of skeletons.
The hazy form of another Ss'sik'chtokiwij.
I clawed and kicked at the tube which trapped me, but it proved thick and unyielding as steel.
Like I was a larva again, trapped in a jar.
It didn't make sense for this to be reality. Things just didn't add up.
Yes, a sort of dream that the worms created for their victims as they infected them.
"Kumar?" I called.
Instead of replying, the man's form disappeared behind his sea of worms, worms that became more opaque and inscrutable.
I couldn't tell if he'd been freed, or just plain dead. I supposed Ssorzechola had purposefully obscured the tank for this very reason.
"You just had to be right," the Ss'sik'chtokiwij across from me growled.
My jaw dropped. "Hissandra?"
The other Ss'sik'chtokiwij abruptly shifted moods. "Help me! She's making me kill Grandmother!"
"No! Maria! Help us!" I screamed and pounded the glass, but only wore myself out making the attempt.
Unable to do anything further, I gave up, allowing myself to sink to the bottom of the tank. "I am sorry, Sidjendo. I cannot prevent you from doing this thing. You must stop yourself."
"The worms are taking my will! I am powerless to resist!"
I shook my head sadly. "Then Grandmother will die. I am as much a prisoner as you."
Someone purred. I turned to look.
A massive yellow creature padded into the chamber, a Ss'sik'chtokiwij with feathery avian characteristics. The creature pointed its long, needle-like beak in my direction.
"What!" Hissandra shouted. "What is that thing?"
"Gretchen Goose?" I cried in absolute astonishment.
"Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik. Sidjendo. This prison is a construct of the mind! C-O-N-S-T-R-U-C-T." As Gretchen Goose said each letter, a colorful glowing letter appeared in the air. "It means something that is made up of figurative elements, instead of something from literal reality. Like me!"
"Gretchen Goose, can you free us from this...construct?"
The feather-like plates on Gretchen's head rattled around her like the spitting lizard in that dinosaur theme park movie. "No, but you can free yourself. All you need to do is use your imagination."
"But I don't have an imagination!" Hissandra protested.
I concealed a chuckle, so as not to offend.
Concentrating very hard, I imagined a doorknob on the inside of my tank. A fancy brass L-shaped one I'd seen in the Pictures folder of my tablet computer at the lab.
I twisted it and gave it a push.
Worms flooded the surrounding floor in a huge wave, like the pressure hatch on one of those movies about sinking submarines.
I climbed out of my prison, wading through tapeworms to my sister's tank.
Focusing hard, I visualized an actual submarine door, twisted the crank, and yanked it open, spilling worms and Hissandra to the floor.
Aquila received a small round door like Hobbits have in films. I have no idea what Ssorzechola thought about all this imagining.
I searched other tanks for additional prisoners to free, but either saw nothing inside, or nobody responded when I tapped on the glass.
Someone tapped my shoulder plate.
I spun around, gasping in astonishment.
A young little blonde girl, younger than Newt.
My dearest and closest human friend, who, after all the mutilation, shouldn't be alive. "Sarah!"
I ran to her.
She wrapped me in her arms, a hug which I could feel through my shell. "Yes, it's me, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik. I did not speak falsely when I said I had entered the young larva. I am here with you now because the worms have a single mind, one which ensnares all of us. I have been steadily overriding it like a pirated radio signal."
Gretchen Goose purred, nuzzling her plates against Sarah's neck.
Hissandra leaped, slashing at Sarah with her claws, but she only passed through the girl, and Gretchen, as if ghosts, hitting the walls and floor.
Sarah frowned at her. "I must ask you both to do something very difficult. I need you to trade tanks."
I gawked in horror. "But why? What is the purpose?"
"You are strong willed, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik. I believe you can overcome the hold Ssorzechola has over our dear sister."
"But what about Kumar? If Hissandra is in my body, she'll likely kill him!"
"I will be there, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik. You must trust me."
"She intends for you to take over my body?" Hissandra cried.
"She did it once before, with me, Sidjendo. I don't like the idea any more than you do."
"How do I know you won't kill Grandmother like you murdered Mother?"
I shook my head. "If I wanted to kill her, I could have just left you under Ssorzechola's power. Believe it or not, Hissandra, I actually do care for our family...What I fear, is once you occupy my body, that you will not leave my friend Kumar unharmed."
She let out a low growl. "I guess we'll just have to learn to trust each other."
I sighed. As close to a truce as we'd ever get.
My sister led me to her tank.
Taking a deep breath, I got in, and, after concentrating for a few moments, I reformed the glass, worms sloshing around me, slowly filling up around my ankle plates, my waist, up to my neck, then over my head.
I closed my eyes, listening to Sarah coaching Hissandra on how to imagine things.
I awoke to find myself in Grandmother's egg laying chamber, dangling four feet above the floor.
Grandma had her claws around my neck, squeezing tighter and tighter.
"Grandmother, please!" I gasped, desperately trying to pry her claws apart. "I'm sorry! I wasn't myself! Ssorzechola was using me to make us kill each other!"
She squeezed my neck until I felt my plates cracking.
"Can't you see that I mean it? That I had no control over my actions?"
"Oh dear." Grandmother's claws cracked my plates further. "I seem to have lost control myself!"
Hissandra's body felt like a shriveled glove from its fall in the volcano. Her hatred, it seemed, was not entirely unjustified.
At the moment, with the exception of the choking, I felt like a normal Ss'sik'chtokiwij, the worms' presence not evident. Only when I attempted to probe Hissandra's memory did my mind get foggy.
I tried a joke I heard in a recording. "Grandmother, you dropped your pocket."
She actually looked.
And then, "What's a pocket?"
"You know. The lower half of your human prey? Many of them wear something called pants. And these pants have something called pockets on them."
She stared. "You're right, Sidjendo. Something definitely is wrong with you. If I didn't know any better, I'd think that..."
Grandma hurled me to the floor. "Out of my sight! Leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone. Now go!"
Nodding, I turned to run, but then a powerful force seized me. My body circled back around to charge at her. "I'm losing control!"
"Don't worry, dearie. If you try anything, I'll make sure you never do it again...Or breathe."
I sobbed in frustration.
"I'm sorry, Grandmother. I really don't want to hurt you. Ssorzechola is making me do this."
My head started pounding, an agonizing aching throb that made me feel like an angry hate filled bull.
A large object appeared in my peripheral vision. Ssorzechola, standing with me among the eggs, obviously a figment, but with very real power over my mind. "Kill her. If you destroy her, your humans will be safe."
"They'll never be safe as long as you're alive."
"The Great Mother is your enemy, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik."
"Did you learn nothing from the humans you possessed? My Lord tells me to forgive my enemy. And while we're on the subject..." As promised, I gave Ssorzechola the laundry list of sins confessed to me during my imprisonment at her `tabernacle'.
"Why are you telling me this!"
"You requested these from your followers. I thought it only right to give them all to you."
"I don't care about their sins! The point was for you to keep those to yourself and die like the sacrificial scapegoat you are!"
"The son of God already did that more than two thousand years ago."
Ssorzechola growled in frustration. "Enough! Since you refuse to kill her of your own volition, I will make you kill her!"
I suddenly got struck by an idea. "Wait. Do not force me. I shall murder her my own way."
"Very good," Ssorzechola purred. "I knew you'd see things my way. I may have use for you yet."
I didn't have much time. I ran up to Grandmother and said, "Please forgive me for hurting you."
Grandma nodded a little, letting out a guttural growl. "Don't let it happen again."
Ssorzechola didn't say anything, since she expected something nasty to occur.
Grandma asked, "What's this about killing me, daughter?"
"It is something called a `metaphor.' It is not painful."
"Will this...`metaphor' kill me?"
I grinned. "Metaphorically."
"I do not understand."
I just shook my head.
I slowly crept up to my grandma, nuzzling against her. "I'm sorry we fought."
Grandmother tried to hit me at first, but then she returned the embrace, coughing softly as she stroked my shell.
"What is this!" Ssorzechola screamed. "I thought you were going to kill her!"
"My Lord tells me that loving an enemy is like dumping coals on their head."
"No more games!" my aunt shrieked. "You have lost your freedom!"
"Quick," I hissed to Grandmother. "Throw me away from you before I attempt to hurt you again. I love you."
She obliged, perhaps a little too eagerly.
Ssorzechola, displeased, used her power to make my head hurt. "Kill her!"
"I pummel my body and subdue it." I struck myself in the face. "Lest after preaching to others, I myself should be disqualified."
Against my will, I found myself advancing toward Grandmother. I struck myself more violently.
The tactic appeared to work. I rushed away from her as quickly as I could, diving behind a pillar.
Along the way, I tripped over a heavy lead suitcase covered in explosive warning decals.
I picked it up, but didn't open it because Ssorzechola chose that time to give me a splitting headache.
When the pain cleared, I found I had opened the suitcase next to Grandmother, disconnecting the safety devices on a pair of dangerous looking metal canisters.
"Sidjendo!" Grandmother cried as I stared uncomprehendingly at my claws. "What is that you are doing?"
"I...do not know..."
My trembling claw drifted toward the arming mechanism.