Fatal Cure - Chapter 100

(Index)

Stunned by the fall, my wallowing hippo impression is fully authenticated when the Mother’s poo closes over my head. With mouth and eyes tightly shut I thrust the little package I carry above the surface, and work with the one free arm to right myself. The jumble of bone and broken concrete beneath me provides an uneven footing.

When my feet are convinced to remain in place I burst into the air and hold a wary, hunched crouch, waist-deep in warm shit, until my balance returns. Gradually I straighten and lower the child to a safer position, blinking brown fluid from my eyes.

Keeping lips tightly compressed I squeegee muck from my face and snort out filth forced into my lungs during the short colon ride.

As an after-thought I wipe the kid's face too.

I spit a gob of brown-tinged saliva, dry heave, and look about me for danger. We’ve been deposited into a square-pillared expanse of the mall’s underground car-park. The crap-heap’s viscosity spreads it messily about the place, engulfing an area the size of an Olympic swimming pool.

The crater we’ve made on impact fills fast from never-ending additions that stream over me. As if further encouragement is required to move me along, a bone falls, bonking me on the head. I shake order in to my head and duck from beneath the sloppy rain of excrement, eager to put that foulest of exit points behind me.

The brown, semi-solid ocean is traversed with a high-stepping gait. It's a slow journey punctuated by unprotected toes being stubbed on unseen debris.

The smell is not lessened by distance from the source. Breaking an aged crust formed at the crap pile’s outer edge releases us from the mire. It also releases vile gasses that are the epitome of vileness.

Mouth-breathing merely coats my throat in the thick reek.

I stand for a long moment, dripping. A stinking, two-headed swamp monster, I glare at the huge anus from whence we came. From here I can see the entire dark-grey butt-end. It sags through a crude hole hacked into the car park’s ceiling.

Obviously an expedient provision for the Mother’s waste disposal.

Another loud fart echoes around the concrete cavern. It doesn’t come from me. A wheelbarrow load of muck and bones spurts from the pulsing sphincter.

I look away disgusted.

Brilliant sunlight slices between slits cut into the car park’s outer walls. Too soon it dims to shadow by obstructing pillars and posts.

Anything might be roaming around down here.

I push the thought aside before Paranoia takes hold of it.

Not far from me are several dust-covered cars, occupying spaces close to a distant escalator. Possible transport! I should be investigating them without delay.

However revenge is what I desire most keenly.

Another noisy expulsion from the creature’s rectum returns my wandering attention to the enemy.

I savour this moment of freedom before the method of vengeance clouds my mind.

With the care of handling high-explosives I gather the baby under her arms and hold the child in front of me. I imagine her as a rocket launcher, the preferred, if unobtainable weapon.

Her innocent, sleeping face lolls on a weak neck. The ragged-ended umbilical cord dangles to drawn-up knees. I briefly wonder if I’m supposed to knot that tube, however nothing seems to be leaking from it.

Shrugging slots that problem into an overflowing ‘too hard basket’.

I have more important worries.

My shield warps outwards to encase the limp baby. Her light-blue eyes crack open, startled awake by aches and pains I remember clearly from the short period I’d shared her mind.

I tense, waiting for the explosion.

She misfires with a weak, disappointing whimper.

My shoulders slump in defeat.

But she’s hungry, sore, covered in sticky, cooling crap, and not being held correctly.

The deep breath she takes in is released in a full-lunged screech.

The sound waves build, triggering my Second-sight. Filters drop over squinted eyes to reshape the air into Parasite fog particles. I watch, gleeful and enthralled, as that communication’s mist resonates strongly with her displeasure.

The effects spread across the thickened atmosphere in sharp edged ripples, bypassing the baby-packed transformers and beating against the Mother’s parasitic goo.

Unfortunately I am not immune to her irritation either. Blocking my ears would be useless. Eardrums are battered from inside my head as well as out.

The audible screams are nothing compared to the psychic storm her outraged mind generates.

The ground begins to shake.

No.

It’s me. I shake as though freezing.

Shifting my feet relieves a prickling, burning sensation. I groan as shooting pains streak up shaky legs and radiate throughout my stomach and chest.

Whatever I am feeling, the Mother feels tenfold. Its butt twitches and ejects another explosive splurt.

I take a few steps back.

The child’s screams scythe across the Mother's simple mind. Its unwieldy bulge of flesh wobbles and heaves in concert with a refracted message of pain. Its internal parasitic congregation sends a torrent of orders for all Creeps to protect them as they fry in mental anguish for a second time.

The panicked howl of their communal deaths is rendered across the foggy transmitter in a counter-wave. When it hits us, their agony unsettles the baby further.

She achieves a constant cry, barely punctuated by intakes of breath.

The tiny grey controllers, the rulers of this city, have no defence.

They are dying.

Her previous awakening had been short due to our swift separation. Though less severe, those few seconds had done them major damage. This time only my tolerance to her wretched cries will decide when she stops.

The decision to call her off early is hard to resist.

My vision blurs as the squalling of our enemy overlaps her full expression of insufferable neglect. It is a hellish symphony of chalkboard scratches and a high-pitched jet engine's whine. My skin shivers and blood weeps from my eyes, ears and nose.

Muscles turn to jelly and the baby’s weight triples. I drop to a squatting position, eyes clenched shut in pain, elbows resting on knees. My brain squirms with worms that bite and tear. Unnatural forces pull my mind apart.

Through pain-slitted eyes I watch the Mother’s butt wriggle uselessly in torment. It defecates another strong, irregular squirt, flushing a large amount of dark liquid from the same opening we’d exited through. The pool of crap liquefies further, spreading in a slow wave to where I crouch, breaking hotly over crap covered feet.

I’m on the verge of passing out. My vision reddens and eyeballs turns to gritty pools of sand. My bowels weaken, and I add bloody faeces to the mess already sloping around me.

The shield bends inward to protect me from further harm but I press it back around the child, keeping her isolated from the sedating fog.

Using the little strength left in me, I bring the baby closer and rest her in the crook of my arm. I then fall to one side, copying her foetal tucked position.

Resting my temple in the slop I treat myself to the sight of the Mother’s final gyrations. It heaves and tugs at its tightly wedged hindquarters. Beyond caring that its tough skin tears. Shudders ratchet through the enormous body again and the longest, most forceful squirt yet explodes from its butthole.

More than stomach contents come flooding out this time. A grey stream, intertwined with bloody gore and mucus. The inner parasite's protective bladder rips, letting the dead and dying pour from their host.

Blackness descends and I welcome it.

(Chapter 101)