Twelve
The scattered fires in the clearing had all but
burned out. Caitlin set the lantern aside and pulled the giant oyster
from the underbrush. Lifting the burden into her arms, she reached for
the lantern and turned away toward town. Within a hundred yards,
something quivered inside the shell. Caitlin let it drop at her feet with
a shriek of fright.
She stared down at the fallen pod, as curious as she
was fearful. She understood that the thing had come from the stars, but
she didn't understand how there could be anything alive inside. It had
been charred during its fiery entrance into the atmosphere, but she had
seen frost that had formed as evidence of the deathly cold still inside
the object.
She squatted and poked at the shell with a stick.
The seam along the lip of the two halves of the shell gleamed moistly in
the pale light from the lantern. Had that been there before, or was the
thing opening?
Even as she watched, the seam widened further.
Inside writhed a gray, wet-looking meat, very much what she would have
imagined a giant oyster would look like on the inside. The poor animal
should have fallen into the ocean. Stranded on dry land, it was dying.
Caitlin leaned closer, curious as to whether or not she would find a pearl
inside.
A snakelike appendage whipped free of the shell.
Caitlin leaped back within the span of time it took her heart to skip a
beat. For a brief moment, she was convinced that she had avoided the
unexpected attack.
But something had stung her ankle. When the sting
registered, she looked down to see a black hook at the end of a red string
of meat stuck in her flesh. She tried to kick it free, but only succeeded
in losing her balance and falling to the ground. She scooted frantically
away from the broken halves of the oyster, but simply dragged it with her.
The tongue of the creature wound itself about her
foot. A gray piece of meat tore free from the shell. She felt the wet
mass crawling up her bare leg. Where it touched her skin, it burned,
spreading a bitter-sweet sensation like an intense itching, but free of
the need to scratch. It was, oddly, a very pleasant sensation.
A creeping paralysis spread in the wake of the
sensation. It engulfed her, and her body became a stranger to her, an
unfeeling appendage of no particular consequence. She lay staring into
the dew-laden underbrush gleaming in the light of the fallen lantern,
engulfed in a warm, pleasant void.
Approaching footsteps fractured a twig. It stopped
somewhere very near, and she resented the intrusion, especially when she
recognized the hushed voices.
"Wow, I guess she did come back out this way," Earl
Rather said, sounding genuinely surprised by his good fortune. "What do
you suppose happened to her?"
Morris prodded her with a boot. "Is she dead?"
Earl smacked his brother with the heel of his hand.
"No, you idiot, she just laid down to take a nap."
"Careful," a third voice said. "That's one of those
shells from the meteors. Poor Caitlin. What do you suppose we should
do?"
The third voice belonged to Jeremy Berman, a goofy
twenty-year-old who worked for the state fixing highways. Jeremy had
graduated from Brighton County High two years ago at the bottom of his
class, although Caitlin had never done much better before she quit. She
had thought Jeremy harmless. The Rather brothers, though, were not.
Jeremy knelt at her side and touched her on the
shoulder. "Caitlin, are you okay?"
His touch felt ice cold. He tried shaking her
shoulders gently.
"Caitlin, it's me."
Morris lifted the hem of her shift with the toe of
his boot. "Anyone want odds on whether she's wearing undies?"
"She's hurt, for Christ's sake!" Jeremy said. "Lay
off!"
Morris shoved him aside. "Fuck off yourself,
Berman."
"She's drunk," Earl decided. "Drunk, or high on
something."
"She's hurt!" Jeremy protested.
"Then I suppose we should take a peek and check for
bruises," Morris said with a cackle.
"That's Biggs' daughter," Jeremy reminded the two.
"Who's going to tell?" Earl said gently. "Me and
Morris won't. And you're going to be the first to have a go at her, so we
know damned well you're not going to."
"I wanted to be first," Morris whined in protest.
Earl ignored his brother. "What do you say, Berman?"
Berman was silent, contemplating temptation. Caitlin
stared into the darkness, feeling her tears tickle their way down the side
of her face, but otherwise helpless to react.
A firm hand on her hip rolled her onto her back.
"Christ, her eyes are open," Jeremy said.
"But she's breathing," Earl said. "Told you so.
Booze or drugs. Two to one her old man drove her to it. If you still
think she's hurt, we'll just have to have a look..."
The hem of her shift rose to cover her face. If she
was being touched, she could feel nothing.
Morris was the first to speak. His tone of voice was
hushed and filled with fear. "What the hell is that thing?"
"Get it off her," Jeremy said, and Caitlin heard him
break a stick in half. She thought maybe he was poking at the thing that
had attached itself to her body. She couldn't be certain, and she wasn't
certain if she appreciated the interference.
Jeremy shrieked, his voice pitched as high as a
child. It happened in an instant. Dead weight fell across Caitlin's
legs.
"It bit him!" Morris cried. His voice slowly filled
with terror. "Did you see that? It bit him!"
"Oh, God," Earl murmured.
"Look what's happening!"
Morris made a gagging sound, then staggered away and
vomited. Without another word, the two fled. She heard the sound of
their boots crashing through the underbrush. In time, the silence of the
night returned with a vengeance. Caitlin's mind became a void of starkly
vivid consciousness filled with a vague and pervasive feeling of pleasure
and well-being.
The night progressed. Crickets did not chirp.
Mosquitoes did not bite. Dawn turned the sky rosy, and dew formed heavy
and wet on her motionless eyelashes.
