Exodus (22 page)

Ben’s chest was now a mass of black veins that spread out from his right shoulder toward his abdomen. Around his throat, like ivy climbing around the trunk of a tree, fronds edged upward toward his ear. At first Emily thought the plectrum-size overlapping flakes covering his right shoulder were just skin discoloration, but, as she moved her head closer, she could see they were actually scales, like a lizard’s but larger.

Emily looked up to make sure Rhiannon couldn’t see what she was seeing. She had moved into the bathroom with her toothbrush and a bottle of water. When Emily heard the door squeak closed, she gently rolled Ben over onto his stomach. The kid didn’t make a sound; what she had mistaken as sleep was more likely a coma state, she realized.

His back was completely covered in the same scales she had seen on the boy’s shoulder. They extended all the way down over his buttocks and upper thighs, stopping just short of his knees, and edged over his oblique muscles toward his tummy. Ignoring
her revulsion, she ran her hands lightly over the rough scales; they bristled like the fur on a cat’s back at her touch. Something beneath the layer of scales pulsed and undulated.

Emily allowed Ben to roll onto his back again. The child’s eyes were tightly closed and his breathing had become faster than normal, almost like a dog’s pant. Drawing in a deep breath for courage, Emily eased back the lid of one eye with her thumb.

Gone were his iris, sclera, and pupil, replaced by a solid-red orb pitted with tiny dimples; at the center of each dimple was a small cluster of black spots. She let the lid drop back into place, then closed the comforter back over the boy and took a step away from the bed.

As she watched the motionless boy, her mind replayed the moment she’d killed the alien-puppeteer; that final second as the tentacle whipped through the darkness and hit Ben. She had been wrong all along about its motives. It hadn’t wanted to kill any of them; it had wanted to make them like it, to turn them, and in its final desperate second of life, it had managed to infect Ben.

Angelic, innocent Ben.

A feeling of utter despair took her firmly between its teeth and bit down hard, sinking its teeth into her very soul.

“How is he?” Emily hadn’t registered Rhiannon coming back in the room, but now she stood outside the door to the bathroom, looking far more concerned than a kid her age should have to.

Emily frantically waded through the morass of thoughts that filled her mind, looking for an appropriate answer. How was she supposed to tell Rhiannon her brother was changing into something alien? And if she told her he was fine, when he very obviously wasn’t, what then? While the transformation was only partially complete, what were they to do when he was no longer human at all? What was he becoming? If it was anything like the
creatures that she had encountered so far, then he would be intent on ensuring both her own and his sister’s demise.

“The same,” she said finally as she placed the pills she had set aside in the boy’s mouth and washed them down with water. Ben swallowed reflexively. His breath stank like a cesspool, and she quickly turned away from him.

Rhiannon began to walk over to where her brother was laying.

“He’s asleep still,” Emily whispered, shooing her in the opposite direction. “Best if you leave him be for now. He needs all the rest he can get to fight this bug.”

The lie came easily from her lips, and Rhiannon seemed to accept it.

“Why don’t we get ourselves something to eat?”

“I’m starved,” said Rhiannon, brightening.

Emily popped the lids on the cans Rhiannon had pulled from the supplies and emptied their contents into a saucepan. She heated the food over a low flame on the portable gas stove; all the while her mind was attempting to assimilate what she had just seen and what few options she had to deal with the situation. She could just grab Rhiannon and run; leave Ben here and go. How she would ever be able to explain that to his sister was beyond her, the kid was smart but she was still just a kid. Even if she showed her what was happening to her baby brother, she doubted it would make a difference to her. She was so damn loyal to him.

Emily spooned the warmed food into two waiting dishes.

“Thank you,” said Rhiannon as she took one of them.

“Umm-hmm!” Emily was working on automatic now. She opened a can of dog food for Thor and added it to some dry kibble in his bowl. Poured out some water for him and then some into two plastic mugs for Rhiannon and herself.

“I think it’s probably best that you sleep in a separate bed from Ben tonight.”

Rhiannon looked up from her food. “Why?” she asked.

Why indeed. “I’m not sure if what Ben has is catching or not. And if you get it…you know. That would be bad.”

Rhiannon gave it a few seconds thought, then, “Okay.” And she was back to eating, the thought that she had been in constant close contact with her brother for the past two days never crossing her mind, apparently.

At the bottom of the beds was a reading nook consisting of a table and a couple of high-back chairs. She would spend the night there, she decided, so she could keep a closer eye on Ben through the night.

After dinner, Emily placed the lamp on top of the table and rested the Mossberg against the side of the chair. She searched through the closet and found a spare blanket; the nights were becoming chillier, and she would need it.

Rhiannon decided she wanted to take Thor out for his evening bathroom run, which Emily was quite happy for her to do. Ben was beginning to show signs of movement. She had noticed it while she was still eating dinner; the comforter would give an occasional, almost imperceptible twitch, as though Ben was suffering from some kind of muscle spasm beneath its material. She couldn’t be certain, but she thought that she may have even seen those terrible alien eyes moving back and forth beneath his lids, like a dreamer in the midst of REM sleep. There was no way she was going to leave Rhiannon alone with him. Not now.

As darkness began to pull the remaining light from the window, Rhiannon climbed beneath the covers of the bed. “Good night, Emily,” she said.

“Sleep well,” Emily replied as she took her seat and pulled the blanket around her. A pillow laid on top of the table would allow her to get some rest, at least.

“Good night, Ben.” Emily heard Rhiannon whisper. “I love you.”

Emily fought her exhaustion in a vain effort to stay awake and aware.

The light from the LED lamp was turned down low enough that Rhiannon could sleep but bright enough that Emily could still make out the still form of Ben in the opposite bed. Her tired mind was still turning over the events of the past few days, flashing first the image of the cute little boy she had met just days earlier, then the terrible images of Ben’s deformed skin in front of her eyes, like some warped movie.

Her fatigue gnawed at her thoughts, dragging them in different directions.

At some point, she lost the battle; her head drooped once, twice. Just five minutes, that’s all I need, she thought as she laid her head against the pillow. Just—

Thor’s growl woke Emily.

—five minutes.

She sat up with a start, her heart doing cartwheels in her rib cage. Where was this place? What time was it? Her disorientation vaporized as Thor’s growl sounded again in the dimness of the room.

She glanced over to the spot on the floor where Thor had been sleeping. Her dog was sitting bolt upright, teeth bared as he slowly tried to back away from something on top of Rhiannon’s bed. Her tiny snores floated across the gap to Emily.

Emily’s eyes flashed back to the bed; Rhiannon was curled up, fast asleep, the comforter pulled up to her head. Ben—or what had once been Ben—was perched on the end of her bed, one side of his face now completely black with the same spiderweb of veins she had seen covering his back. His eyes were open now, those strange red wet orbs glistening in the light of the lamp.

He was crouched over Rhiannon, his head dipped toward her sleeping body as his nose sniffed the air around her; his mouth hung loosely open as rivulets of drool dripped from each corner, collecting in a small damp pool on the comforter.

Ben lowered his head toward Rhiannon. Emily stifled a scream as a thick black tentacle of a tongue snapped from the boy’s mouth and flicked into the air just above the sleeping form. The tongue recoiled and slapped back against the boy’s lips, then disappeared into his mouth, leaving a slather of puffy foam behind.

“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Emily hissed.

Thor gave another growl, and the boy’s head slowly swiveled until it faced the dog.

Snick!
Ben’s tongue flashed into the air between him and Thor. The dog gave a deeper growl, taking a single step toward the bed, his fur bristling.

“Quiet, boy,” Emily whispered. “Stay very still.”

At the sound of Emily’s voice, Ben’s head swiveled silently in her direction.

With very deliberate movements, Ben climbed from his perch, dropping to the floor between the two beds on all fours. He scuttled sideways across the floor before pulling himself up onto the bed and burrowing into the folds of the comforter.

As she watched, Ben’s eyes closed and his rapid panting slowed until it returned to almost normal.

While it might still bear a passing resemblance to the child, what lay on the bed was no longer human. Emily knew that with a deep, painful certainty. She had already seen the results of the alien’s biological technology, its ability to consume and repurpose human flesh to create new creatures as its tools. How long before what lay beneath the comforter woke again and tried to take Rhiannon? Or kill them all?

The change had reached a tipping point within Ben; by the time the sun rose, she doubted there would be anything left of the boy. She had to stop it now, before Rhiannon woke and before it became so strong that she could not.

Emily rose quietly from the seat, picking up the pillow from the table. She checked Rhiannon; she was still soundly asleep.

Silently she made her way to Ben’s bedside. He was curled up within the comforter, his head just visible between two folds of material. Asleep he looked almost normal, those hideous eyes hidden behind his lids, but the black veins pulsing against his temple betrayed what he was, what he was still becoming.

Emily leaned in, ignoring the odor of the boy’s breath.

“I am so very sorry, Ben,” she whispered as she placed the pillow over the boy’s face.

Emily pressed down hard on the pillow, using the palms of her hands to ensure a tight seal around Ben’s nose and mouth. His legs began to kick against the comforter; she could feel his arms pushing the pillow, trying to tear it from his face with a strength that did not belong to a child of his age. She leaned in harder against the pillow, using her full body weight to force it deeper onto the boy’s face. Gradually the thrashing began to subside as he weakened. Eventually, it stopped altogether.

Emily did not let go for what seemed like hours but could only have been mere minutes. She had to be absolutely sure.

When she finally lifted the pillow from the still form, Ben was dead.

Dear God, what had she done?

Survived. She had survived.

That was what it had come down to, pure and simple. She had done what she needed to ensure both her own and Rhiannon’s survival.

Having answered her own question, Emily repositioned the body on its side so the black tattoo of veins covering his cheek and chest would be hidden from sight. His hands were clenched into claws against the material of the pillow, and she had to prize them loose, straightening the fingers as best she could before she moved his arms to his sides and finally placed the pillow she had used to smother him beneath his head.

By the time she had finished, he was just a boy in the bed. A boy who had died in his sleep. Peacefully. Painlessly. That was what Rhiannon would see at least. The burden of his true death would be Emily’s alone to bear.

She pulled the comforter up to Ben’s chin and stepped away, taking a deep breath as she fought back first the urge to vomit and then the desire to scream. Instead, she made her way back to her chair and pulled the blanket around her.

The pain would return tomorrow, when she had to explain to Rhiannon that her brother had died peacefully in his sleep sometime during the night.

Emily’s pain would not be so simple to explain away and would stay with her for the rest of her life.