knees and a head covered in a briar patch of fleshy antlers throbbing like veins.
Ray glances down at the ground and sees a chunk of concrete on the rubble-strewn road. He picks it up, feeling its weight.
“ What the hell are they?”
Tyler laughs wetly, wiping yellowish mucus from his mouth onto the back of his hand. “This,” he announces proudly, “is Life.”
Ray stares at them in horror. They are starving, weak, disgusting. They have no mouths, no teeth, no claws. They appear harmless, and yet he has never been so afraid of anything.
Tyler adds, “Come on over here, Ray, and meet the family. They ain’t gonna bite.”
He whistles and the creatures stir and totter forward. Ray is too terrified to move. Close up, they appear to be blind, without eyes, and yet he knows they can sense his presence—knows that they’ve been looking for him, that they’re happy to finally have found him. They smell like pus.
As the creature with the antlers nears, its head shifts as if to nuzzle and its body shudders, releasing a cloud of musk. Ray cringes in disgust, fighting the urge to vomit. Make your pecker fall off, his mind blurts out irrationally. His instincts are howling with fear. He realizes he is not looking at another hideous spawn of Infection. He is looking at Infection itself.
Specifically, he is looking at his own infection. The sickness that right now is turning him into something else. It is like having cancer and being forced to say hello to your tumor.
The antlered thing scuttles toward him in a surprising burst of speed, straining at the leash and releasing another cloud of musk. Ray can feel its raging fever heat.
“ Oh, we got a live one,” says Tyler, laughing.
Ray reels from a massive wave of nausea. He looks at his hand and sobs in horror. It is bright red and swollen and covered in warts and blisters, one ruptured and leaking bloody fluid. His index finger has been bitten off. He is afraid that if he screams he’ll start vomiting and won’t be able to stop.
The thing shudders again, releasing another cloud of musk. This is how it eats.
Ray roars and crushes the creature’s head with the chunk of concrete, the antlers stinging his hands as his skin brushes against them. The dark green skin splits easily, spurting pus and wriggling things that splash wetly onto the road. Its head destroyed and sagging like the ruins of a burst balloon, the creature continues to skitter back and forth on its leash, spilling squeaking parasites and fluids rich with alien bacteria and viruses.
Heaving the concrete over his head, Ray smashes the body into a puddle of green flesh.
Tyler laughs. “What do you think that’s going to do? Shit, you can’t kill Life, boy.”
Ray says nothing. He no longer understands language. He no longer has a mouth. The heat is incredible—the heat of his own blood pumping through his body. Tiny monsters swim in the soup, spreading fresh diseases his body receives and catalogs with joy. He peers out from rubbery green skin with millions of microscopic eyes, sensing Tyler’s presence. His hooves, chapped and raw and bleeding, clomp on the road.
He has become Infection.
Red mist veils his vision as he dreams the dreams of the Brood, the dreams of home. He floats over an endless plain under a copper sky filled with red dust and countless screaming winged things. As far as the eye can see, the land below swarms with monsters—naked things of all shapes and sizes constantly fighting and eating each other in teeming mountains of flesh. An entire ecology based on meat and waste in a circular food chain where everything eats everything else. Life filling every bit of space, eating and breeding and fighting for scarce nutrients and air and sunlight. This ecology is harsh and brutal but also rich, diverse, changing. Soaring through the humid, oily air, Ray watches as species rapidly evolve in endless competition. He wonders which of them is the Brood.
Then he understands. They
Ray glances down at the ground and sees a chunk of concrete on the rubble-strewn road. He picks it up, feeling its weight.
“ What the hell are they?”
Tyler laughs wetly, wiping yellowish mucus from his mouth onto the back of his hand. “This,” he announces proudly, “is Life.”
Ray stares at them in horror. They are starving, weak, disgusting. They have no mouths, no teeth, no claws. They appear harmless, and yet he has never been so afraid of anything.
Tyler adds, “Come on over here, Ray, and meet the family. They ain’t gonna bite.”
He whistles and the creatures stir and totter forward. Ray is too terrified to move. Close up, they appear to be blind, without eyes, and yet he knows they can sense his presence—knows that they’ve been looking for him, that they’re happy to finally have found him. They smell like pus.
As the creature with the antlers nears, its head shifts as if to nuzzle and its body shudders, releasing a cloud of musk. Ray cringes in disgust, fighting the urge to vomit. Make your pecker fall off, his mind blurts out irrationally. His instincts are howling with fear. He realizes he is not looking at another hideous spawn of Infection. He is looking at Infection itself.
Specifically, he is looking at his own infection. The sickness that right now is turning him into something else. It is like having cancer and being forced to say hello to your tumor.
The antlered thing scuttles toward him in a surprising burst of speed, straining at the leash and releasing another cloud of musk. Ray can feel its raging fever heat.
“ Oh, we got a live one,” says Tyler, laughing.
Ray reels from a massive wave of nausea. He looks at his hand and sobs in horror. It is bright red and swollen and covered in warts and blisters, one ruptured and leaking bloody fluid. His index finger has been bitten off. He is afraid that if he screams he’ll start vomiting and won’t be able to stop.
The thing shudders again, releasing another cloud of musk. This is how it eats.
Ray roars and crushes the creature’s head with the chunk of concrete, the antlers stinging his hands as his skin brushes against them. The dark green skin splits easily, spurting pus and wriggling things that splash wetly onto the road. Its head destroyed and sagging like the ruins of a burst balloon, the creature continues to skitter back and forth on its leash, spilling squeaking parasites and fluids rich with alien bacteria and viruses.
Heaving the concrete over his head, Ray smashes the body into a puddle of green flesh.
Tyler laughs. “What do you think that’s going to do? Shit, you can’t kill Life, boy.”
Ray says nothing. He no longer understands language. He no longer has a mouth. The heat is incredible—the heat of his own blood pumping through his body. Tiny monsters swim in the soup, spreading fresh diseases his body receives and catalogs with joy. He peers out from rubbery green skin with millions of microscopic eyes, sensing Tyler’s presence. His hooves, chapped and raw and bleeding, clomp on the road.
He has become Infection.
Red mist veils his vision as he dreams the dreams of the Brood, the dreams of home. He floats over an endless plain under a copper sky filled with red dust and countless screaming winged things. As far as the eye can see, the land below swarms with monsters—naked things of all shapes and sizes constantly fighting and eating each other in teeming mountains of flesh. An entire ecology based on meat and waste in a circular food chain where everything eats everything else. Life filling every bit of space, eating and breeding and fighting for scarce nutrients and air and sunlight. This ecology is harsh and brutal but also rich, diverse, changing. Soaring through the humid, oily air, Ray watches as species rapidly evolve in endless competition. He wonders which of them is the Brood.
Then he understands. They
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