We’d fallen right into CD’s trap. The Terramed must’ve heard us talking about Jason’s arrival, and snuck inside the apartment to infect him. Gabby certainly ran to him when she got into the apartment, and by the time she realized he was infected it was too late.
“Dave,” Jason said my name and started to smile.
Barbed tentacles scratched at Gabby’s stomach, ripping at her clothes and drawing blood. She whimpered, but was powerless to move. The creature had a firm grip, both with its tentacles and Jason’s arms.
There was only one hope of escape, at least for Gabby. I didn’t have any other choice but to offer myself as a sacrifice.
I put the broken katana to my throat and said, “You want me, right? That’s why you let the others go. Because I hadn’t fallen into your trap yet. If you want to be the one to kill me, then let her go. If you don’t, I swear to God I’ll slit my throat right here, right now.”
The Terramed hesitated, and then began to loosen its grip on Gabby. The barbed tentacles slid off her stomach, and Jason loosened his grip on her arms. She gasped and moved towards me, but I yelled at her, “Get out.”
“Dave, I…”
“Go. Now!”
“No, I’m not going to leave you.”
“Yes you are. You’re going to save that baby, no matter what.”
Beaver was barking outside, and I could hear Otis yelling my name.
“Otis,” I screamed out to him. The Terrameds had extended their tentacles across the hallway that led to the back door, blocking my sight of Otis and the others. “Get in the van. Wait for Gabby. She’s coming out.”
“They blocked the door,” said Tony.
“I know. They’re going to let Gabby go. Take her and get somewhere safe.” I stared into Jason’s eyes, never breaking my gaze. The katana was still pressed to my throat, nearly cutting into me as I waited for Cum Dumpster to let Gabby go.
Jason opened his mouth, and the Terramed inside of him let out a series of high pitched squeaks. The tentacles blocking the exit moved aside, and I glanced over at where Otis was waiting. He looked ready for a brawl, but I yelled out, “Otis, stay there. Don’t come in.”
“Dave,” said Gabby, her eyes filled with tears.
“It’s going to be okay. Get out of here. You and the others get as far away from here as you can. Don’t look back.”
“I’m not…”
“Go!” I shouted at her. She flinched as if it’d been a physical attack. “This isn’t just about you, Gabby. You’ve got to think of your baby.”
She corrected me, “Our baby.”
That nearly floored me. Of all the words ever strung together in the history of mankind, those two were the perfect ones to steel me in a way I’d never experienced before. There was no doubt in my mind that my sacrifice would be worth it.
I repeated the words, “Our baby.”
Gabby backed away, towards the door. Tentacles of all sizes began to drape from the holes in the ceiling, reaching down as if to grab at her before she could leave.
I pressed the sword harder to my throat, drawing blood. I looked at Jason and said, “Let her leave!”
Cum Dumpster’s wounded tentacle stretched out towards me, reaching for the blade at my throat. When I flinched, the tentacles above Gabby drooped lower, causing her to scream out in fear.
My Terramed nemesis continued to move its wounded tentacle towards my hand. It was moving tentative and calm, like a person might approach a wild animal with an offering of food. I didn’t move away, and the tentacle slipped over my hand and the handle of the sword. It gently tugged to get the blade to move away from my throat, and at the same time the tentacles touching Gabby rose to let her leave.
CD was no fool. He knew that I might slit my own throat the second Gabby was out of the apartment. I had no choice but to capitulate until Gabby was free.
With each step Gabby took, the tentacle around my hand tightened.
I took one last look at her before Otis swooped in and carried her away. The second she was out of the apartment, my nemesis ripped the sword out of my hand and threw it against the wall. The other Terrameds began to rip themselves free of their confines, sending plaster raining down all around me. Their vicious mouths bore through the walls. Within seconds, I was surrounded by the monsters that’d brought about the apocalypse.
The Terrameds rose up, supported by multiple, thick tentacles that acted like legs. I got a chance to study them closer than ever before. Each of them had three distinctly different types of appendages. There were the thick, red speckled ones with the suction cups on them that did most of their heavy lifting. There were the thinner, barbed tentacles that were the longest of the bunch. And then there were the multiple short, thin variety that hung below their middle sections like a beard. Some of the smaller tentacles had black bulbs at their tips that acted like eyes. The creature’s mouth was hidden in the center of the mass of tentacles, and at the top there was a purple membrane that shielded the pink, pulsing brain within. The shape of their heads reminded me of a mushroom, or perhaps something more phallic.
“Oh, look at you bunch of dickheads,” I said as they approached. “Let’s get this gangbang started.”
Jason inched closer, smiling wide. His mouth opened, and he began to issue the most disturbing laugh I’ve ever heard. It started normal, if stilted, and then morphed into a wet expulsion more akin to a cough. His throat swelled as tentacles slid up through him. His eyes bulged, and then popped free of their sockets to dangle by their white, fleshy optical cords as new strings poked free. The tentacles that appeared from behind his eyes were pink and small, different from any of the others I’d seen.
Jason’s skull split right down the middle of his forehead. Blood squirted out at me as Jason’s brain sat exposed. There were strings of pink crisscrossing his brain, their tips stuck to it like leeches. The strings pulled away from his brain, ripping as they did, and then started to point in my direction.
Cum Dumpster wasn’t planning on killing me. He wanted to take over my body!
“Oh hell no!”
I’d been prepared to die, but I wasn’t about to let these things infect me. I’d rather force them to kill me.
I did the only thing I could think of, and sent my knee up into Jason’s crotch with as much force as possible. I hit him so hard that we both raised up off the ground for a moment, and when we came back down I felt his grip on me loosen. The Terramed was still hooked into Jason’s brain, and I imagine he was tuned into his nervous system as well. My attack had been devastating to my nemesis, and I hope I’ve got the honor of being the first person in history to knee a Terramed in the balls.
I dove for the sword, which was near the wall. I knew there was no chance of making it out of this alive, but if I had the opportunity to kill CD before the end, I was going to give it a shot.
CD grabbed my leg with one of its tentacles and pulled me back, which sent me falling face first to the floor. I crashed down and felt my nose crunch on the carpet. I wasn’t certain if it was broken, but it started bleeding immediately. Most of us have had that awful sensation, where you get hit in the nose and then momentarily wonder if you broke some sort of snot reservoir in your head as liquid begins gushing out.
I was about a foot out of reach of the sword, lying face down on the floor as CD climbed up onto my back. I flailed back at Jason in an attempt to stop what was about to happen, but he’d pinned me to the floor. Tentacles wrapped around my legs, arms, and waist. It felt like someone was pouring thick maple syrup over me as the tentacles spread out across my body. The larger appendages suctioned themselves to the floor and then to me, securing me in place. Each second I felt my body being pressed harder to the carpet, and my range of movement was shrinking. I continued to struggle, refusing to be a complacent victim.
My left hand brushed against something odd. It was a strap of some sort, and felt tough… like leather.
Jerry’s wand!
Gabby had dropp
ed her grandmother’s leather bra when Jason grabbed her, and it was within my reach. I already knew the ionizer didn’t bother these creatures the way Jerry had suspected, and I knew that using it to create a fire wouldn’t do me any good either. After all, these creatures had a built in fire-suppressor. But how would they react to being electrocuted?
It was time to find out.
One of CD’s tentacles flopped over my head, blinding me and pressing my face to the carpet as tiny pink strings reached out from Jason’s face and started to snake down my cheek, headed for my ears, nose, and mouth. I had to blindly search for the battery box and outlet that Jerry had attached to the bra strap. By the time I found it, CD’s tentacles had nearly limited all of my movement. It was a struggle just to breathe as the tentacle’s suction cups pressed over my nose. I could feel those wormy little brain-strings inch their way along my cheek.
I found the bobby pin attached to the bra strap, but dropped it as I pulled it off. I had to desperately search for it on the carpet as CD’s brain-strings slid into my nasal cavity and continued searching my skull.
I heard Jason say my name, although his voice was barely more than a gurgle now.
“Dave.”
I jammed the bobby pin into the socket, prepared for a jolt.
Nothing happened.
Nothing fucking happened.
Jerry’s invention was broken, and I was doomed to suffer in whatever sick and twisted way CD wanted.
I could feel CD invading me, and I tried to imagine what would come next. Surely these things didn’t slide their way inside of people only through the nose. Would it slit me open and sneak inside? Was he impregnating me with a squid monster that would grow inside my brain like something from an Alien film?
Cum Dumpster was going to have its way with me. It would slip inside my head, take over my brain, and turn me into one of the infected legion.
A tentacle moved to cover my mouth and nose to suffocate me. The pink strings were still able to slide into me, but no air could make it to my lungs. These creatures didn’t need me alive to take over my body. Once inside, they snuffed out the life of their host and took over their bodies. It was happening to me. CD’s wormy strings were reaching up to my brain.
This would be my ignoble end. Suffocated by CD’s slimy tentacle before it took over my body and flicked a switch inside my head to turn me into a slave.
As simple as flipping a switch…
FLIP THE SWITCH!
Jerry’s contraption was turned off! That’s why it didn’t shock me when I stuck the bobby pin into the socket.
I was as close to dead as a person can get as I searched for the switch on the side of the battery pack. I found it, flipped the switch, and then slammed my hand onto the bobby pin like I was the President of the United States hitting the big red button that would fire off all the nukes.
A jolt of electricity surged through me, and subsequently through Cum Dumpster as well. The only time I’d ever experienced anything like it was in college when I let a friend hit me with a taser. Except this time the sensation wasn’t over immediately. CD’s tentacles stiffened from the shock, forcing my hand down onto the bobby pin and continuing the electrocution. My hand started to burn, but the pain didn’t even register. My body was convulsing from the electric shock, and every nerve ending felt like it was about to explode.
CD reacted to the attack by ballooning up with pus-filled sacs that quickly exploded, splashing the room with viscous fluid. However, the Terramed’s built-in fire defense didn’t help with electricity. It made the problem worse. The electricity flowed through the slime, continuing to murder us both.
The tentacle over my face lifted, allowing me to see that other Terrameds were coming to help, but when their tentacles touched CD’s slime they got jolted back. Finally, CD released my arm, and I was able to pull my hand off the socket.
When the electrocution stopped, I smelled smoke. There was no fire, because of the slime, but my left hand had been blackened and burned. The second the electrocution stopped, the surge of pain from my wounded hand came to the forefront of my mind. I pulled my hand to my chest, slipping it through a wave of brown goo filled with dead, electrocuted worms. As I cradled my wounded hand, I felt CD’s weight shift. He wasn’t holding me down anymore.
I started to crawl away from Jason’s corpse and the mass of tentacles that’d erupted from it. The combined weight of Jason and CD was nearly too much to escape from, but the new slime helped lubricate the ground. I slid free, and pushed my way on my stomach towards the katana that’d fallen near the wall.
The other Terrameds were too frightened of getting shocked to approach. They kept their distance as I crawled to the only weapon at my disposal.
Unfortunately, CD wasn’t dead yet. He squealed from atop Jason, and I looked back to see if he was coming for me.
CD had allowed himself to be fully exposed. The process of attempting to meld with me had forced him to allow the purple sheath over his brain to retract. The pink, pulsing brain of my nemesis was in full view.
The Terramed’s brain didn’t look like a human’s. It had four lobes instead of two, and was more malleable. It was covered in thin strings that searched the air like a sea anemone, but their formerly pink color had turned blisteringly red. The purple sheath that normally covered the brain was trying to slide back over it, but the creature had been wounded by the shock, and was moving slow.
I knew exactly what I had to do.
I grabbed that broken sword and used it like a cane to help me stand. Then I turned to face the creature that’d been intent on killing me. I planned on chopping at CD’s brain like a possessed deli slicer, but the Terramed had recovered from the electrocution better than I’d expected. It was pulling itself free of Jason’s body from a slit along his spine. Blood and mucus mingled in a sticky web beneath CD’s arms as it lifted itself free. Its mouth was facing me, open wide and revealing the raw esophagus within. A hundred triangular, razor sharp teeth vibrated as the creature screeched at me, and I knew that I’d lost any chance of dying painlessly. Cum Dumpster was pissed, and he wanted to make me suffer.
Plaster from the cracked and busted ceiling fell down over us like snow, dusting the hardening muck that covered me. CD paused and watched me with its hundred eyes clustered in two, undulating orbs. The purple sheath had been pulled up to cover CD’s brain, but the membrane was thin and wounded. I was certain I could cut through it and split the creature’s brain in two.
“Are you waiting for me to make the first move?” I asked. “Fine by me. I wasn’t planning on making it out of here anyway.”
I raised the sword and prepared to take what would likely be my final, desperate swing.
More plaster fell from above, and I realized my error. CD had been waiting for his brethren to get in position above me. The ceiling was teeming with Terrameds, and a barbed tentacle shot down at me in mid swing. The tentacle wrapped around my wrist and latched its sharp barb into my skin. The sword fell from my grip as the creature above tried to pull me up. A piece of the ceiling fell free, and the Terramed above dropped a few inches, which gave me a chance to resituate myself. I took advantage of the slack by grabbing onto the tentacle and pulling it backward as hard as I could. The Terramed above was pulled about a foot out of the ceiling as I inched closer to the wall behind me.
CD took the opportunity to lunge at me teeth first. Its wide mouth and multiple lips tried to snap at me, but it missed as I moved back. Then the creature lashed out at me with several tentacles and pushed me up against the wall.
But it wasn’t the wall I was against. My back came in contact with the thick, hot blackout blinds that were the only thing standing between a room full of Terrameds and a hell of a lot of sunshine.
“Hope you brought your sunscreen, pal.”
I grabbed the blinds’ cord and yanked it hard enough to bring the blinds down behind me. Sun flooded the room, and the Terrameds screeched in pain as the unforgiving light burned t
heir delicate bodies. The entire apartment was filled with sunlight, and the creatures struggled to find a place to hide. Some of them headed for the walls, but the direct exposure wreaked havoc on them as they tried to dig their way to safety. One of them headed for the sink in an attempt to squeeze down the drain, but it would burn to death before making it even halfway down. Another one of the Terrameds reached to the ceiling and started to pull itself up, but its body was exploding with sacs of pus as it struggled to get away. Pieces of the creature began to fall off like the old skin of a snake.
Cum Dumpster bore the brunt of the sunshine, and shrunk from me as it wrapped tentacles around its fragile brain. There was no way in hell I was going to let him get away.
“Oh no you don’t.” I ran at the creature and tried to grab onto it. The slime made it hard to get a grip on its tentacles, so I grabbed a handful of its eye stalks like I was plucking a bunch of carrots. I pulled CD towards the window, and then plunged my burned hand into the wounded, purple membrane that protected its brain. CD lashed at me with its barbed tentacles, but at that point I didn’t care about pain anymore. All I wanted was to pluck its brain like a peach pit and burn it to a crisp.
I felt the squishy brain, and the thin hairs that covered it, and tried to pull it free. All the while, CD’s skin was erupting in pus-filled sacs that were exploding all around me. The stench was horrific, and there wasn’t a single inch of my body that wasn’t in pain as CD fought to survive, but all of this was worth it when I was finally able to pull that brain out. I had the brain cupped in my hands like a doctor pulling a newborn from a screaming mother, and I yanked it from the folds of tentacles so that it was exposed to the sun.
The soft, squishy brain sizzled in the sunshine and quickly hardened. CD’s tentacles went limp, but I wasn’t convinced my nemesis was truly dead. I wasn’t going to risk getting tricked by this thing again. I dragged the creature back towards the window and then slammed its brain against the hot window pane. It continued to sizzle and smoke until it began to crumble like a piece of charred wood. Bits and pieces of the brain fell apart in my hand, and I finally tossed them to the ground.
I wish I’d thought of some incredible, Schwarzenegger-style line in that moment, but I settled for a jerk off motion, aiming my imaginary splooge at CD’s corpse. “Suck it, Cum Dumpster.”
My path out of the apartment was clear, although I assume the creatures could’ve risked exposure to lash out at me from the walls. However, I wasn’t scared of them anymore. And I think they realized that I wasn’t the sort of guy they should fuck with.
I retrieved the sword, flicked off the muck, and headed for the door to get the hell out of Little Mexico for good. None of the remaining Terrameds tried to bar my way. I made it outside, but Gabby and the others were nowhere to be seen. I was alone, but for the first time in as long as I can remember I had a sense of purpose.
That was my son Gabby was carrying, and I’d do whatever it took to make it back to him. I knew my friends planned to drive to the bike path that led up to the foothills, so I’d head that direction. It wouldn’t be long before the sun set, which meant the Terrameds would have free reign all night long. Whatever trials I’d survived thus far, the future promised to be even worse. It was me against the world, but at that moment I felt like I couldn’t lose.
Trust me, that feeling would fade fast.
To Be Continued…
Author’s Note