Mr Stein grabbed her as she was about to hit her head again, which was running copious amounts of blood and he could see the pieces of glass sticking out in a determined manor before falling out of the thin layer of protection between the skull and epidermis. He held her arms across her body with his covering them, he idly thought that it was probably the closest he had held a woman in such an intimate embrace, since his divorce a year previously. He could see that Dr Orion was having trouble with the syringe of sedatives. The nurse, he only knew as Jackie, quickly helped him and they pulled a blue tinged liquid into a large syringe. He wondered, why doctors always needed to inject people with tranquilizers in obscenely large needles. It seemed to counteract the calming effect.
As they approached cautiously, Mr Stein shook his head, “She’s out cold, no muscle tension.” He slowly loosened his grip and let her slide down to the floor. He quickly grabbed a cushion off a nearby chair to place under her still bleeding head. The doctor suddenly able to think straight again gruffly ordered Jackie to hand him bandages. He took a basin of water and washed away as much of the blood as he could, then applying an odd focus lensed monocle to his forehead as he grabbed tweezers and started extracting small pieces of glass. Jackie kept wiping away blood as he worked and eventually, he appeared to have finished. He placed a gauze and bandage, stopping the blood from becoming a problem again.
The Doctor looked up at Stein and shrugging his shoulders with an almost embarrassed sigh, “The skull always bleeds a lot. Nothing to be alarmed about. I felt that her skull wasn’t cracked, though I will need to check for any bruising to her brain.”
“Her brain is fine, you do not need to check,” the sleeping woman spoke. Mr Stein, the Doctor and Jackie looked down at her in shock.
“And, you are?” Mr Stein asked shrugging at the Doctor and Jackie.
“I am able to communicate with you through the living transmitters in her brain. We are currently using her neuro-pathways to mimic your speech and communication patterns. It is hard for us to explain in great detail from your limited selection of words. For an example I am seeing from her knowledge sources, it would be the same as if you tried a similar communication with an ant?”
“Us being small and clone minded?” The doctor scoffed.
“No, the barriers in communication to make a change to the mind set of large group consciousness.”
“Why are you causing the humans to stop existing? Why us?” Mr Stein asked, being one of the parents who had a fourty something year old daughter after having only had her grow as old as two. She was a mute due to the lack of language development. He had spent weeks with his ex wife trying to teach her English.
“We are not stopping your existence, we are improving it.”
“What?” The doctor asked, startled.
“You did limited research, it is not our place to try educate your race. We are hoping to improve it. Please look after the new…”
She woke up suddenly and looked with wide eyes at them, standing over her, “What’s going on?”
They looked at each other and Mr Stein slowly sank down to one knee beside her, “You had a panic after taking the sedatives and ran forward into the glass.”
“Oh, right, yeah I remember feeling weird. Um, I know this is bad timing, but I really need to be in familiar surroundings. Is there any chance I can go home and rest before you question me?” She asked hopefully.
Mr Stein made the decision, without a second thought, as they needed space to discuss what was going on and with her safely at home, the aliens or what ever they were could not listen or remember, “Yes, we will escort you home and please rest. Just contact us, if you plan any going out or any activities?”
“Sure, I guess,” She gave them a perturbed look.
“I’ll take you back. Give me a few moments and we’ll be ready to go,” Mr Stein volunteered.
…
They drove to her house in relative silence. The radio was just a jumble of words, not reporting anything significant. She felt the wind from the partially opened window and felt an off sensation of categorising the feeling and then she noticed the same going on with the colours she could see. Her brain felt like a file system, slowly filing away information that didn’t seem to need it. She felt a sudden lurch in her stomach, which was odd, due to her not previously finding motion sickness as a factor in her life. She continued feeling bilious and asked in a strangled voice as she realised she was asking too late for Mr Stein to pull over. He did and she staggered out and promptly threw up. She looked down and realised that she had managed to hit her shoes. But that was the least of her concerns when she looked at the oddly fluorescent orange bile splattered.
“What the fuck is that?” She questioned Mr Stein.
He looked at it for a while and eventually just shrugged his shoulders, wiping a hand wearily across his face, “I don’t know, this has been an odd day.”
“Well, what the fuck do I do?” She yelled hysterically.
“I don’t know!” He yelled back, feeling a hard self preservation instinct answer.
She slumped and suddenly she blinked back at him with no pupil eyes, “Do not upset her. Please drive her home and leave. She needs to rest. We will put her into sleep mode.”
She fell into a heap and he diligently picked her up, feeling a slight heaviness he hadn’t noticed before. She slumped into the seat and he continued the drive. He drove into her driveway and opened the passenger door, wondering how to wake her to walk into the small townhouse. He saw she had a small picket gate and a neat little herb garden in the front yard. This suggested she was a very organised person. He picked her up and struggled a bit as he unlatched the gate and placed her on the front step. She seemed to be growing heavier by the minute and he sighed as he looked around the door for a key hiding place, “by the roses in a box buried beneath the small toothpick,” a soft voice commanded from the unconscious woman.
He went to find a small tin box and quickly used it to enter the house. He placed her on the couch and felt an odd protective urge in not wanting to leave her alone. She looked so vulnerable and alone. He sat in the old arm chair and turned on the television to see if the news was on.
…
John Stein woke with a start, he had forgotten where he was and looked around at the unfamiliar lounge suite. He looked over to where he had left the woman sleeping on the sofa and questioned her absence, but realised with a sinking feeling that a spotted purple and orange coloured egg, wrapped in blankets was placed carefully in the centre. It was around the size of a rugby ball and as he stared at it, it moved slightly. He took a photo with his phone and quickly sent it to the Doctor. He got a reply almost immediately, ‘I’m on my way!”
John turned toward the television and turned the volume partly up, “new development has only affected three percent of woman of the population between twenty to forty two and numbers are still being reported across the globe. The symptoms start with biliousness, orange bile being thrown up which relates to metabolic alkalosis where the blood PH in the women rises above the normal. This suggests the eggs consume the food directly to be created and leaves the stomach empty of any acid stores,”
He quickly picked up his phone, there were several missed calls from his ex wife and he quickly redialled her and got frustrated by the message service immediately coming up, suggesting she had blocked his number.
He tried to dial the emergency phone, which they had given to their daughter to call if needing help, and found it just rang out. John remembering his old next door neighbours number, he quickly dialled and sighed with relief to get a male voice answer, “Hi Stephen, I am so sorry for bothering you, but I received several missed calls from my ex and I can’t get hold of her or my daughter.”
“You need me to quickly go and check on them, sure, no worries. I’ve just finished mowing the lawn, so I can pop over and tell them to ring you,” his neighbour agreed readily.
He thanked him and hung up, staring at his phone screen and willing it to ring. He jumped back as the egg moved, more aggressively than it had done before. He wondered where Miss Thrimble was and whether to call out to her. Jumping again as a quick rapping on the door startled him. He saw through the window, the Doctor and Jackie. He quickly opened the door and they pushed past him to look with wide eyes at the egg, “It’s all over the news about them. We need to take this back to the lab!” the doctor exclaimed, running a hand over the shell. The egg cracked and the Doctor looked excitedly at them, “It’s hatching!”
“Get away from my child!” Miss Thrimble yelled, baring her teeth like a grizzly bear from the top of the stairs.
John stepped back hurriedly, recognising the same ferocious protectiveness that his wife had shown when she had birthed their daughter. The doctor rose, his smile and body language at odds with the fanatical gleam in his brown eyes. Jackie looked almost condescendingly at Miss Thimble saying, “Now dear, we need to take this egg to be examined. We promise to keep in touch with the progress. You appear to be the only one within the town to have been able to get to this stage, so we’ll need you back at the facility.”
“You will be in danger if you try touch my child. Do not try again.”
Jackie and the doctor laughed at her, “You really are not in a position to,” they got no further as the shell cracked and two bright black orb eyes peeked out. John looked at the adorable baby as it started leaving the shell. It looked around curiously. It’s head was very human like, except for the eyes and as the shell began falling apart he saw that the baby appeared to have tentacles or five legs instead of the normal. Jackie smiled down at the hybrid and said in a coaxing voice, “Hi sweetheart, you want to come with us and become a significant contributor towards science, don’t you?”
Miss Thrimble descended the stairs and quickly pushed the woman back from her child. The doctor put a hand on her shoulder and she plunged a steak knife into his neck. Nurse Jackie screamed and moved to help him and she did the same to her. Both were bleeding out on the carpet. John watched in fascinated horror as the hybrid baby grinned a sharp tooth smile and began devouring both the doctor and Jackie. Oddly like he remembered tales of Dracula where the baby appeared to be sucking the blood from the shrivelling flesh as it made teeth marks along arteries and veins. John backed towards the door, but was stopped as Miss Thrimble looked at him with the non-pupal gaze, “Don’t worry John, the babies have received enough nourishment to grow out of the larval stage. They are not monsters and will not randomly attack. Unlike your species who breed babies to be devoured. Their mother, has provided them the starting points and should be able to hunt more high protein and haemoglobin food sources. They will need this for their second stage development as well as other nutrients. The mothers are in a protective state and will not be able to control themselves when hunting. Please use caution.”
He numbly left the house, walked to his car and drove towards his home. He didn’t care about the divorce, or the fact his sweet two year old child was now a forty year old woman. He wanted to hug them and feel normalcy. He walked through the front door, thanking the heavens that his ex had not changed the locks. His first thought was a question of the puddle of blood in the entrance. His wife was a fastidious cleaner and had insisted on white tiles to shine in the entry. He had pointed out that the tiles would be scuffed and muddied during the winter weather and their non-paved driveway. She had told him that he was criticizing her housekeeping and had had a temper tantrum for five days. He looked at the blood and thought stupidly, that the stain would never come out from the grout between the tiles. It was something he used to take delight in pointing out before she had had enough. Shaking his head he numbly wondered at the blood and whether his neighbour had made contact. He went cautiously to the open lounge doors and seeing slight skids of blood apparent, like someone dragging a body, he followed it down the hall to the first door, where he had memories of his daughters christening and his wife insistence to paint it a baby pink. He had spent his entire weekend painting the room, then she had questioned whether it might be too hard for the baby to sleep with such a bright colour. He had moved the crib into their room to ensure all his hard work at her insistence would not disturb his daughters sleep. They had fought and he regretted his own part in the fight. She was an anxious mother and she was trying her best to put her child first. He couldn’t see it after the time and regretted his harsh words and unforgivable insistences.
Opening the door with a sweet sign saying ‘Anna’, his daughters name, with a few unicorns and fairy artwork surrounding it. He heard a crunching sound and winced his eyes as he saw a similar hybrid creature happily draining his neighbour Stephen.
“Dad! Welcome, meet your grandchild. I’m calling him,” she clicked several times and then gave a guttural “Urumph” sound.
“That’s wonderful my darling Anna, where is your mother? I need to talk with her.”
“Oh sorry, she was eaten first. He really needed the protein. Thanks so much for sending the neighbour over. Made it much easier,” she smiled innocently at him. He knew the news should upset him, but he could only feel a numbness, that he would need to explore later to place blame for the issues of him being complacent in their deaths, “Feel like a sandwich dad?”
“Sure, is the baby okay alone?” He answered, wondering at the absurdity of talking to a two year old about lunch who had just given birth to an alien hybrid, who had and was eating people including his ex-wife and neighbour.
“Perfectly fine, the second nutrients mean he should be progressing towards adolescence soon. Wow, what a day right?” She said happily, making a ham, cheese and cucumber sandwich for him. He ate it and felt a sadness, that she had known his favourite sandwich, which meant maybe her now deceased mother had informed her some way and remembered to include him.
“Is your mothers body still here or did he devour it?” He asked, considering of all things funeral arrangements. He remembered her saying she wanted to be cremated rather than buried.
“Oh no, the larval stage eats the entire thing once their teeth become strong enough. I can wait until he needs to defecate, if you need something?” She asked as if they were discussing the weather.
“No, don’t worry,” he answered in a monotone. He had finished his sandwich and stood, preparing to leave. Suddenly a tug on his pants showed a larger tentacle baby with slightly showing white around the rim eyes of his grandchild.
“Grampa,” it said in baby tones and he smiled down at him.
“Hi grandson. Grampa has to go away for a bit, will you look after your mummy for me?”
The hybrid baby smiled it’s rows of jagged teeth and nodded enthusiastically. He smiled at his daughter while he departed, closing the door with a finality he wished was not a goodbye.
He got into his car and started the engine, realising that tears were falling silently from his eyes. He started driving, when the silence became too much he flicked to a news channel,
“deaths totalling billions as world has stopped,”
“tentacles dropping off to reveal hybrid legs except on coastal zones, seems to be adaptive evolution,”
“second wave has produced litters! Three to four eggs per birth. They need two to four humans to get enough nutrients to develop passed the first stage,”
“do not approach any female walking with swaddle, they target groups,”
“began develop faster through contact rather than implantation,”
“human refuge camps along coast,”
“boats attacked by human squid hybrids,”
click click “Kar, kar hurishamaka,”
The end…
