Monster (30 page)

T
he World was almost
helpless against this invasion. The
men from the third planet had been warned and
did
n't at first allow their si
lver spaceships to land on the sur
face. They knew what the surface of th
e World could do,
how the infection could get inside them and begin to
eat
them unless they ate others of their own kind. That's
what brought on the victim's hunger.
The parasite had to
be fed
,
or else it would feed on its host. It hungered for the
living
iron in the dying blood
–
to bring about the polarity,
the
magnetism, that led to union with the mind of the
World. It
wasn't sufficient to be infected with the parasite
for t
he transformation to happen. That could make a
human
being sick, nothing more. It was only when the
pola
rity in the blood of the victim reached a certain level
that
the
‘
phase transition
’
to magnetism occurred. Then
the
hunter and the hunted became one. Of course, once
a h
uman was fully transformed
,
he could change others
sim
ply with his blood. He would change them
rapidly
–
more
rapidly than the w
ater could. He could take over a w
hole planet with his blood.

But
these men would not give the World a chance to
send
its cells into their bodies to start the process. High up
in the
sky
they sent forth a burst of light that explode
d as
it touched the World, rending the ground, carving ou
t a
crater where not a single one of the World's
cells survived.
Only then did the s
paceships slowly descend into the
safe haven of the exploded crater. It was there that they
began to erect their machine.

The World watched at first. It could do
little
more
until
the ones
it
had converted arrived on the scene. The
men
worked quickly. The thing they bui
lt
began to take shape in less than a day. Yet it was not done at the end of the
d
ay,
and the World waited until the sun had vanished to
se
nd forth its hungry legions. They came by the thousands.
F
or aeons the World
had stored them up in the bowels
of it caves, not just people from the third world, but
visitors
from faraway stars as well, changed beings who lived on
ly to
eat and serve the will of the World.

Once more the third world men had been warned. They never slept and were able to activate powerful red and green energ
y
beams at the first sign of attack. The
se rays cut down the
World
’
s legions of walking and fl
ying
dead. In a short time there was nothing but million
s of
twitching limbs surrounding the crater the men had carved for themselves. M
any
of the limbs, driven by the will of
the
World, rose on their fingers and toes and wings to try
to
reach the enemy. But these, too, the men f
i
red upon
, an
d soon there was only smoking ash in place of what had on
ce
been the World's great defence.

But in the midst o
f this conflict one of the men grew
careless and stepped beyond the confines of the crater. T
he
World was on him in a moment pushing its seed into h
is
bloodstream. The
man screamed as he was attacked, and
the other men were
warned. They didn't run to his aid;
instead they fired their energy beams upon him wi
thout
mercy. They'd had experience, the
World thought.
Bef
ore t
he men destroyed their partner, the World got a glim
pse
of the man's mind and understood that the machine
the
men were erecting was meant to rupture the crust
of the
World
. It
was a gigantic bomb. The men had come to
kill the World.
They wis
hed to kill it
because the transformed
beings
the World had sent back to the third planet had a
ll but destroyed the human race. These men,
the World saw, a
nd a
handful of others on the third planet were all
that
was left of a vast civiliz
ation, a culture that would now in
all
probability become extinct
.

T
he
World didn't know what to do. It could do nothing;
the m
en were determined. The World watched as the men
finish
ed
their machine the next day and then retreated
into
space. The World knew that the machine continued
to tick;
it could hear the sound of the machine's internal
parts moving.
It knew the count-down was on.

Then t
he mighty bomb exploded, and a deep pain
s
ho
t thro
ugh the mind of the World. A mushroom of fire ap
peared
, and the World felt its insides scream. The me
n had acco
mplished their goal, the crust was ruptured. The spin
of t
he World did the rest. Huge chunks of its body flew off
into
space. Then the incredible pressures at the centre of
the
World were released, and the World exploded in a hor
rendous
burst of energy, and the agon
y
was beyond relief
.

Until
it stopped
.
The pain suddenly stopped.

Th
e World was gone. It was
dead.
Lifeless rocks tumbled
through
the void where once the World had lived and
eaten
supreme.

Yet
a few small pieces of the World survived, in a con
fused sta
te. Those chunks of the world's crust held the ce
lls of t
he
World.
They floated for aeons with consciousness but
no compre
hension. They knew only their hunger, which
they cou
ld no longer satisfy, and their hatred of the men
who
had destroyed their home. Above all else, they vowed
that
if
t
here
was ever a chance, they would t
ake vengeance
upo
n
the people of the th
ird
planet
.

In
time it looked as if a few of the pieces were to be
given
that chance. Because as they tumbled through space,
some
pieces passed close to the third planet. Round and
round t
he sun they went, until a few actually
hit
the
planet.
Of those, mos
t
landed in
the
vast oceans and
were
lost
. But two hit the l
and, and once more there was
great fire and pain for the feeble remnants of the W
orld’s
once-vast mind. Almost
all of the cell
s were destroy
ed
in the heat of the landing, but a few lived in the
rock
t
hat was eventually softened by t
he mighty glaciers. T
he
glaciers left many lakes behind
–
the waters in which
the
cells eventually found release. There, in two small bodi
es o
f fresh water on the third planet, the cells multi
plied
and waited for the day they could once more cause
the
blood to flow in those who had destroyed their
home.
The sweet red bloo
d, the only thing that truly satisfied
the hunger.

“
Angie,
”
Kevin said.

Angela opened her eyes. She saw the ceiling of the basement, the exposed boards of the floor above, a single bulb burning bright. She smelt blood, the sour taste of copper in the air
,
and beneath that, the faint aroma
o
f sweet iron. She moved her jaw and heard it crack. Her fact was covered w
it
h g
ook; she could feel its dried sti
ckine
ss
stretch as her skin flexed. Blood, she thought. An angry heart pounded inside he
r skull. Every beat brought greater
and greater pressure, demanding relief. She tried to sit
up,
and the pain went off the scale.

“
Ouch,
”
she moaned, squeezing her eyes shut and do
ub
ling up. Kevin held her a moment, trying to help h
e
r
.

“
Don't get up
,”
he said.
“
Just sit. We don't have anywh
ere to go at the moment anyway.”

She reopened her eyes to see she was sitting in a puddle of blood. It was caked over her face. Her fingers flew up to her head. She had a cut, a bad bruise at the back
of
her skull, bu
t
she couldn't have lost all the blood she
was
sitting in. She glanced at Kevin. He didn't look
that
much
worse off for
Jim
's blow, although the left side of
his face
was puffy. He wasn't soaked in the stuff. What had
they
done to her? Poured a gallon of blood down her
t
hroat
while she lay unconscious on her back? She had a
horrible
taste in her mouth. But it didn't rival the pounding i
n
her head. Nothing could touch that. She was going
to have
to eat
so
mething soon, or she
was
going to have to
saw
the top of her head open.

“H
ow
long have you been awake?”
Angela asked, pulling
the
front of her shirt out of her pants and rubbing her
face.

“Just a couple of minutes,”
Kevin said. His eyes strayed
to the
ceiling
. “
We're locked down here. They're
still
up
there.”

Sh
e
listened. The boards creaked overhead.
“
I'm not
surprised.”

Kevin rubbed his head. “
What the hell's going on? Do
they blame us f
or the deaths of Todd and Kathy?
”

“
I
doubt they're w
orried about that at the moment.”

“
Then why did they clobber the two of us? What are they
all doing
here?
Jim
told me you
were
having a party
.”

“
This is not a party
,”
Angela said
.

“I
can
see that.
Tell me what's going on. Please?
”

“W
e are
being held captive by thirty vampires from outer
space.”

“Angie?”

“
That's all
I
know.”
Her nightmare came back to her
right t
hen. The r
uin of the ancient human civiliz
ation. The
men’s
bomb
.
The death of the evil World
.
The asteroids'
long st
umble through time and space and the rebirth of
the
p
a
rasit
ic
cells
in the water of the two lakes.
She added,
“Do
n
't ask me any more.”

Ke
vin was impatient
. “
That's not good enough, Angie
.”

S
he winced in pain.
“I'm sorry.”

He
was instantly regretful and reached out to touch her
head
.
“
W
e have to get you to a doctor,”
he said
.

She
was
very aware of his hand on her skin. It was almost
as if
each one of the cells in the region where he
was
making co
ntact had its own un
ique radar to detect different char
a
c
t
e
rist
ics
of his flesh. She was es
pecially sensitive to the blood in his fingers, fl
owing beneath the surface of
his s
kin. Such a frail sheet of skin
–
that simple layer of
hum
anity that took only moments to peel away
…

T
he pounding in her head reached a feverish pitch.

She pushed his hand away.