Short Stories

  A sea of hosts.

  And now I begin to see. The host species is the same as The Maker’s, but He is superior to them. He stands apart from them, a ruler of the stuff of life, a god. Now I understand why the Maker fashioned me: to invade other, lesser members of His kind—many of His kind, considering my numbers.

  But is His grievance with all of these, or merely one? If the Maker has but a single target, He is exposing all in order to reach just that one. He must have a dire grievance against that target.

  I spread widely into the room air, yet further attenuation does not diminish awareness.

  But the cooler temperature is not good for me. It disturbs my protein coat, altering its structure. Why am I so terribly fragile, so temperature sensitive? Did the Maker plan that?

  Some of my units begin to die. I must find a warmer clime if I am to survive.

  I ride the Brownian currents, looping and dipping, and

  dropping,

  dropping,

  dropping onto the host herd

  And now I mix with them, swirl around them, float among them. I cannot attack them from out here, cannot pierce their tough outer layer. And I cannot simply be invited across their thresholds—they must carry me inside.

  And so I wait to be given shelter.

  But hurry, please. I am losing more units to the cold.

  A rich and powerful herd, this, dressed in black and white, and studded with shiny minerals. An elite clique among the host mass—the air teems with self-satisfaction. And as they talk and whisper and laugh, they drag me into their respiratory orifices.

  At last! Warm again. This is a perfect temperature.

  Now the invasion begins.

  I must be wary. The hosts have formidable defenses: enzymes, antibodies, phagocytes, a xenophobic task force ever vigilant against intruders. But the essentially liquid medium of the host’s body that allows its militia to range far and wide in search of foreigners, also allows me to spread—in fact it will propel me—throughout the system.

  First I adhere to the moist cells that line the respiratory tract. I am so tiny I can slide along the mucousy surfaces of the cells and slip between them; there I enter the sluggish flow of tissue fluid around the cells. Gradually I am drawn into the afferent lymph channels where I make swifter progress toward the vital centers of the host.

  No sign of my target cells yet—I will know them by their receptor proteins—and none expected. I have merely entered the periphery of the jungle, and am navigating but a small tributary toward the river that runs through it.

  The first contest lies directly ahead...at the lymph nodes.

  As I hit the nodes, the immune alarms go off, alerting the batteries of B-cells and T-cells, scrambling the phages. The battle is on.

  Huge, ferocious macrophages lunge from their barracks, hungrily engulfing my units, ingesting them, stripping them of their protective protein coats and tearing the nucleic innards asunder. Sticky, Y-shaped antibodies cling like leeches to the polyhedron surfaces of other units, incapacitating them, dragging them down, hobbling them, making them easy prey for the phages.

  Bit by bit, I am falling prey to the host’s bodyguards, but I am unbowed. I am too many for the host’s armamentarium. The Maker foresaw these battles and supplied me with more than sufficient units to weather the attacks. He counted the stars, and gave me their number.

  I am legion.

  I move on. I flow into the efferent channels and leave the lymph nodes behind. The phages and antibodies nip relentlessly at my heels, dragging down the stragglers. They are indefatigable and, given enough time, will gnaw my number to zero. But they will not have that time. Even now the lymph channel empties into the venous circulation and I am flowing ever faster toward the host’s soft center. Biconcave red blood cells, dark with carbon dioxide, tumble about me. Are these my target cells? No. I have no affinity toward their receptors.

  I tumble into the terrible churning turbulence of the heart where I am washed this way and that, brushing against the pulsing muscular walls of the right ventricle. But I do not adhere to its lining. The heart then, is not my target. I am crowded into the small vessels that service the lungs, caught in the frantic catapulting of CO₂ molecules and the greedy grab of fresh oxygen by the red cells, then another, even more turbulent ride through the left ventricle, through the aortic valve and then...

  I spread into the arteries.

  Up to this point I have been fairly contained, confined to the lymph channels and some of the veins. But now...now I am able to disperse throughout the host in search of my target cells.

  But I do not have to go far. Here...here in the artery itself, I sense welcoming receptors in the vessel wall, calling, reaching, just microns away behind the flimsy intimal lining.

  The Maker is so clever. He fashioned my protein armor so that it closely resembles the proteins that feed the muscle cells in the middle layer of the host’s arteries. The cells of the media layer pull me toward them, form a neat little pocket around me, and bubble me through the protective membrane into the soupy interior.

  Finally I am where I belong. I have reached my Promised Land. But I remain inert, helpless within my protein coat—for my armor is also my prison. But no fear. The cell will take care of that.

  As soon as I am inside, enzymes nibble away at the protein polyhedron they have snagged, reducing it to its component amino acids. They have no interest in the strand of nucleic acid coiled within, so they leave that floating among the cell’s organelles.

  Now I am safe. Let the antibodies and phages rage impotently outside. They cannot reach me in this cytoplasmic sanctum without destroying the sibling cell that houses me.

  And now I am ready to start the task for which I was created, now for the first time in this cycle I am as close as I will ever come to being...

  ALIVE.

  The membranous maze of the endoplasmic reticulum, the power cells of the mitochondria, and the protein factories of the ribosomes lay spread out before me, unprotected, ripe for hijacking. For that is what I have been engineered to do: Invade the cell and launch a coup d’etat during which I execute the nuclear DNA. After I establish control I commandeer the cellular machinery and force it to do my bidding. I impose my nucleic acid blueprint on its production facilities, and they roll out...

  More of me.

  But...something is wrong.

  The nucleus ignores me. It is impervious to my assault. And not just in this nucleus, but in the nuclei of all the cells in the arteries of throughout this particular host, and of all the assembled hosts.

  What is happening to me? Other cytoplasmic enzymes are attacking me, tearing me apart, ripping away my bases for their own purposes. Instead of taking charge, I am being devoured.

  This should not be! I am engineered for human cells! My nucleic acid is compatible with human RNA and DNA! The Maker must have made an error somewhere, else why would I be rejected? Worse than rejected—I am being destroyed!

  It is happening everywhere, in all the hosts...

  steadily reducing my biomass...

  further and further...

  ...taking it below the critical mass for awareness...

  ...the Maker has failed...

  ...I...

  (this is what’s known as the "latency period")

  aware...

  somehow...somewhere...

  I survive. I live. I grow...

  ...in ever increasing numbers.

  In one host. Only one.

  But, oh, what a host. Its nuclei self-destruct in my presence, leaving me in complete control of its cells.

  And I am a tyrant. I whip the ribosomes to maximum capacity, forcing them to churn out duplicates of my nucleic acid and protein coat at a delirious rate, exhausting the cell’s reserves. But by the time that happens, the cytoplasm is fairly teeming with my children. They stretch against the confining membrane, and then burst free into the bloodstream, lysing the cell, leaving behind a leaking, dying husk as t
hey spread like pollen on the wind.

  Immediately they are drawn into other cells in the artery’s middle layer. And the process repeats itself, again and again until once more my number is legion.

  Oh, Maker, forgive me for doubting You. You are as caring as You are brilliant. I see the genius of Your plan now. You engineered me for human cells, yes, but not for just any human cells. Only the cells of a specific human with a specific DNA pattern would be susceptible to me.

  You are an assassin god, but You are not a bomb thrower. You are a sniper god, and I am Your bullet.

  And see how well I perform as my biomass swells. See how I lyse the muscle cells of the arterial walls in ever-increasing numbers. See how the pressure of the blood within the lumens strains against the weak points, bulging them outward. Finally there are not enough wall cells to contain the blood within. The aneurysmal swellings rupture and blood spews into brain tissue, gushes into the abdominal cavity in a crimson torrent.

  Blood pressure drops precipitously...to zero...complete vascular collapse. The host is doomed. There can be no return from this. Infusions of fluid will only leak through the countless tears in the arteries, far too many for surgical repair. Within minutes of the first rupture, the target host is dead.

  Oh, Maker, You are all powerful. I await Your reward for my valiant service.

  Maker?

  Maker, the temperature of the host is dropping...falling below the level where I can maintain the protein coats of my units.

  Maker, my units are dissolving.

  steadily reducing my biomass...

  further and further...

  soon there will me no trace of me.

  is this what You planned all along?

  Maker?

  Ménage à Trois

  by F. Paul Wilson

  * * * *

  Burke noticed how Grimes, the youngest patrolman there, was turning a sickly shade of yellow-green. He mo­tioned him closer. “You all right?”

  Grimes nodded. “Sure. Fine.” His pit­iful attempt at a smile was hardly re­assuring. “Awful hot in here, but I’m fine.”

  Burke could see that he was anything but. The kid’s lips were as pale as the rest of his face and he was dripping with sweat. He was either going to puke or pass out or both in the next two minutes.

  “Yeah. Hot,” Burke said. It was no more than seventy in the hospital room. “Get some fresh air put in the hall.”

  “Okay. Sure.” Now the smile was real — and grateful. Grimes gestured toward the three sheet-covered bodies. “I just never seen anything like this before, y’know?”

  Burke nodded. He knew. This was a nasty one. Real nasty. He swallowed the sour-milk taste that puckered his cheeks. In his twenty-three years with homicide he had seen his share of crime scenes like this, but he never got used to them. The splattered blood and flesh, the smell from the ruptured intestines, the glazed eyes in the slack-jawed faces — who could get used to that? And three lives, over and gone for good.

  “Look,” he told Grimes, “why don’t you check at the nurses’ desk and find out where they lived. Get over there and dig up some background.”

  Grimes nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, sir.”

  Burke turned back to the room. Three lives had ended in there this morning. He was going to have to find out what those lives had been until now if he was ever going to understand this horror. And when he did get all the facts, could he ever really understand? Did he really want to?

  Hot, sweaty, and gritty, Jerry Prit-chard hauled himself up the cellar stairs and into the kitchen. Grabbing a beer from the fridge, he popped the top and drained half the can in one long, gullet-cooling swallow. Lord, that was good! He stepped over to the back door and pressed his face against the screen in search of a vagrant puff of air, any­thing to cool him off.

  “Spring cleaning,” he muttered, look­ing out at the greening rear acreage. “Right.” It felt like August. Who ever heard of eighty degrees in April?

  He could almost see the grass grow­ing. The weeds, too. That meant he’d probably be out riding the mower around next week. Old Lady Gati had kept him busy all fall getting the grounds per­fectly manicured; the winter had been spent painting and patching the first and second floors; April had been des­ignated basement clean-up time, and now the grounds needed to be whipped into shape again.

  An endless cycle. Jerry smiled. But that cycle meant job security. And job security meant he could work and eat here during the day and sleep in the gatehouse at night, and never go home again.

  He drained the can and gave it a be-hind-the-back flip into the brown paper bag sitting in the corner by the fridge.

  Home . . . the thought pursued him. There had been times when he thought he’d never get out. Twenty-two years in that little house, the last six of them pure hell after Dad got killed in the cave-in of No. 8 mine. Mom went off the deep end then. She had always been super religious, herding everyone along to fire-and-brimstone Sunday prayer meetings and making them listen to Bible readings every night. Dad had kept her in check somewhat, but once he was gone, all the stops were out. She began hounding him about how her only son should join the ministry and spread the Word of God. She submerged him in a Bible-besotted life for those years, and he’d almost bought the pack­age. She had him consulting the Book upon awakening, upon retiring, before eating, before going off to school, before buying a pair of socks, before taking a leak, until common sense got a hold of him and he realized he was going slowly mad. But he couldn’t leave be­cause he was the man of the house and there was his younger sister to think of.

  But Suzie, bless her, ran off last sum­mer at sixteen and got married. Jerry walked out a week later. Mom had the house, Dad’s pension, her Bible, and an endless round of prayer meetings. Jerry stopped by once in a while and sent her a little money when he could. She seemed to be content.

  Whatever makes you happy, he thought. He had taken his own personal Bible with him when he left. It was still in his suitcase in the gatehouse. Some things you just didn’t throw away, even if you stopped using them.

  The latest in a string of live-in maids swung through the kitchen door with old lady Gati’s lunch dishes on a tray. None of the others had been bad look­ing, but this girl was a knockout. “Hey, Steph,” he said, deciding to put off his return to the cellar just a little bit longer. “How’s the Dragon Lady treat­ing you?”

  She flashed him a bright smile. “I don’t know why you call her that, Jerry. She’s really very sweet.”

  That’s what they all say, he thought, and then wham! they’re out. Stephanie Watson had been here almost six weeks — a record in Jerry’s experience. Old lady Gati went through maids like someone with hayfever went through Kleenex. Maybe Steph had whatever it

  was old lady Gati was looking for.

  Jerry hoped so. He liked her. Liked her a lot. Liked her short tawny hair and the slightly crooked teeth that made her easy smile seem so genuine, liked her long legs and the way she moved through this big old house with such natural grace, like she belonged here. He especially liked the way her blue flowered print shift clung to her breasts and stretched across her but­tocks as she loaded the dishes into the dishwasher. She excited him, no doubt about that.

  “You know,” she said, turning toward him and leaning back against the kitchen counter, “I still can’t get over the size of this place. Seems every other day I find a new room.”

  Jerry nodded, remembering his first few weeks here last September. The sheer height of this old three-storey gothic mansion had awed him as he had come through the gate to apply for the caretaker job. He had known it was big — everybody in the valley grew up within sight of the old Gati House on the hill — but had never been close enough to appreciate how big. The house didn’t really fit with the rest of the valley. It wasn’t all that difficult to imagine that a giant hand had plucked it from a far-away, more populated place and dropped it here by mistake. But the older folks in town still talked about all the troubl
e and expense mine-owner Karl Gati went through to have it built.

  “Yeah,” he said, looking at his cal­loused hands. “It’s big all right.”

  He watched her for a moment as she turned and rinsed out the sink, watched the way her blond hair moved back and forth across the nape of her neck. He fought the urge to slip his arms around her and kiss that neck. That might be a mistake. They had been dating since she arrived here — just movies and something to eat afterwards — and she had been successful so far in holding him off. Not that that was so hard to do. Growing up under Mom’s watchful Pentacostal eye had prevented him from developing a smooth approach to the opposite sex. So far, his limited rep­ertoire of moves hadn’t been successful with Steph.

  He was sure she wasn’t a dumb in­nocent — she was a farm girl and cer­tainly knew what went where and why. No, he sensed that she was as attracted to him as he to her but didn’t want to be a pushover. Well, okay. Jerry wasn’t sure why that didn’t bother him too much. Maybe it was because there was something open and vulnerable about Steph that appealed to a protective in­stinct in him. He’d give her time. Plenty of it. Something inside him told him she was worth the wait. And something else told him that she was weakening, that maybe it wouldn’t be too long now be­fore . . .

  “Well, it’s Friday,” he said, moving closer. “Want to go down to town to­night and see what’s playing at the Strand?” He hated to sound like a bro­ken record — movie-movie-movie — but what else was there to do in this county on weekends if you didn’t get drunk, play pool, race cars, or watch tv?

  Her face brightened with another smile. “Love it!”