Thirty-eight
Three of Derek's men burst into the tent, two side by
side, then a third pushing in from behind. The caterpillar raised its
head from Caitlin's throat. Before the third man was completely inside,
the other two had been bitten. The third man died before the first two
struck the floor.
She sat up. The pain of knotted muscles, pulled
ligaments and partially dislocated joints was excruciating, but irrelevant
for the moment. Livid with anger, she fought her way to her feet and put
the caterpillar on her shoulders rather than allowing it to claw its way
up her bare body on its own. She staggered about the cot until she could
balance herself and navigate through the haze of pain. Then she pushed
her way outside. As an afterthought, she went back inside and grabbed the
camera, dragging both it and its tripod along behind her.
Her new caterpillar was larger than her old one. Its
tongue had a longer reach, and it was far more aggressive. As she wended
her way through the protective cluster of vehicles, it struck faster than
a cobra, faster than human reflexes could defend against. She left
carnage in her wake.
The camp was small enough to track Derek down by a
process of elimination. She found him in one of the last tents she
searched, sitting at a desk and writing in a notebook. Two armed guards
stood to either side of the desk. Almost comically, the two guards
collapsed as Derek stood, struck down by the caterpillar that was already
so well tuned to her that it knew she wanted Derek left unharmed for the
moment.
Caitlin set the camcorder on its tripod off to one
side and pointed it at the man. "I want my dress back," she said, her
voice hoarse and all but unintelligible.
Derek stared at her until he managed to interpret her
words. "Janet!” he called out. “I need the zombie's dress! Now!"
A woman with pale eyes and a face darkened by sunburn
stuck her head inside the tent, gasped, and then withdrew. She returned
moments later and tossed the wadded dress at Caitlin's feet with a twisted
expression of resentment on her pinched face.
The caterpillar struck without Caitlin's bidding,
catching the woman in the throat. Derek bellowed anguish. The corpse
bent over backward at the waist as it melted. The head touched ground.
The body then slipped sideways, collapsing like air escaping a balloon.
The caterpillar left a furrow of deep scratches in
Caitlin's flesh as it rushed from her shoulder to feed. With one eye on
Derek, Caitlin picked up and shook out her gown and inspected it for
damage. She slipped it over her head thinking that it fit better with the
few seams that had been torn open. But her arms were so sore, and her
hands so badly burned that she couldn't reach behind herself to work the
zipper.
She half turned and backed up to the man. "You do
it."
Derek inched forward, pale and sweating, and zipped
up her evening gown with a trembling hand.
"Thank you very much," Caitlin said. She turned to
confront him face to face. "Your new tape is going to be more
entertaining than you thought."
Derek tried to move away, knowing the caterpillar
would attack self-defensively as close as he was to its host. Caitlin
reached out with a bare foot and stepped on his right boot to hold him in
place. He swung a fist at her face, and she caught it in the
palm of a burned and cut hand. He gave her a vicious undercut to the
stomach with his left hand, but his balled fist rebounded from a solid
sheath of muscle. It hurt Caitlin. Her entire body was mottled black and
blue from the self-inflicted bruising she had suffered. But she smiled at
his feeble effort.
Derek went wild, throwing his weight from side to
side in an effort to pull loose from her deadly grip. His cries of terror
rose the scale to a girlish scream. Nearby, the caterpillar finished
peeing its two gallons of filtered water, then turned to assess Caitlin's
new situation.
When the caterpillar struck at its remaining victim,
Caitlin turned away. She left the tent and thought no more of what she
had done. Derek had not suffered much. She would not have wished him to
suffer as she had. No human being could commit sins worthy of that degree
of punishment, not even the horror of horrors that she had become.
