Filaria - Brent Hayward [89]
“Wounds? What wounds?”
“You’d better stop. Let me take your temperature.”
An appendage at the end of one of the multi-jointed limbs clanked around within the others, knocking together with a sound like a sweet song and eventually emerging, extending towards Phister’s car, toward Young Phister, who saw this coming in his peripheral vision.
“Sir,” the doctor called. “You there, at the wheel, please stop driving.”
But Phister was excited by the first clear thought he’d had in over a day. He said, “I know how to wake these people! I do. And I know why we came here — Hey, get that thing away from me!” Shoving aside the cantilevered arm was easy yet it came at him again and again and he had to deflect it each time. “Get out of my face!”
Phister accelerated; the doctor, for whatever reason, did not give chase, and soon dwindled behind.
“He was going to help us,” the dead boy said. “I don’t want to die again. Please turn this thing around.”
They coasted for another few moments in the silence of the huge room. Although Phister still heard those whispering voices. Now he saw where several of the tanks had been smashed, their fluids released, bodies slumped and grey. He smelled decay. There was a panel where components had clearly been broken into. He said, “That’s my archive . . .”
The dead boy had not heard him. He gestured toward the inert bodies rushing past. “You know, I once knew a girl obsessed with these people. She wanted to know what they were like, did they pull their pants on one leg at a time, what did they speak like, what did they think. She was always asking my boss questions. Me, I played dumb. Sam would answer as best he could, even though his memory was spotty. He had a crush on this girl, you see. She was pretty hot, I’ll admit that. Then me and him came up with this plan . . . He did actually. Oh, it was a terrible idea, in retrospect. But we concocted this . . . aroma. Based it on what moths use to attract each other but then the breach happened and this stuff got into the air. And everything broke loose. You coming back, the security . . . That girl was my only friend and I deceived her. For which I feel eternally guilty.” He made a snorting sound that echoed through the slices on his neck. “Hey, are you even listening to me?”
“I hear you.”
“All right. So come on. Turn this car around, Phister. I’ve got about three hours left, tops, and I don’t think you’ve got much more.”
But now, truthfully, Young Phister was no longer able to hear the dead boy. And because he could no longer see where he was going either, he was forced to slow the car down to a crawl. But he did not turn the car around.
The last dim thought Young Phister had was that he had never introduced himself to the dead boy, so how did the dead boy know his name? But when his old name was repeated for a third time, he turned slowly, very slowly, to face the tiny passenger, who was still shaking him by the arm. He whispered, “Let go of me. I don’t know anybody by that name.”
DEIDRE, BEYOND
Variation on a recurring dream: caterpillars of several large species covering her, mostly those of moths. Writhing slowly over her legs, arms, belly, and chest. Tangled, struggling in her hair. They touched every conceivable place of her body except for her mouth, nose, and half-closed eyes. Larval insects surrounded her absolutely. Sometimes they were of glossy black scarabs, or blues and skippers and delicate fritillaries. Arachnids, even (though these were not truly insects).
Tiny, suctioned legs puckered, plucking at her skin. The rasp of mouthpieces grazed her flesh.
Under cover of the slowly seething mass, she was as naked as the day she’d been born. She smiled.
Actually, Deidre had never seen live caterpillars before. Not while awake. Only pictures of them, in illustrated printouts; Sam created all moths directly in their adult phase. So it was with great interest that she studied these dream-caterpillars. The majority of them — ranging