Back | Next
Contents

Chapter 12

Donald tossed and turned beneath the covers of his bed. They wrapped around his sweat-drenched form as he moaned in his sleep. In his dreams, Donald stood face to face with a creature straight out of the depths of hell itself. The thing was made entirely of worms. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of the tiny creatures, all entwining to make one seven-foot-tall, human-shaped monster. Donald wasn’t sure whether he was seeing the future, or if the monster had come to him in the world of his dreams. All he knew was he was scared to death. In his dream, he and the creature stood alone like old west gunfighters, facing each other in the base’s mech hangar. The hangar was entirely deserted but for them, though there were numerous corpses scattered over its floor from one end to the other. Most of them were mercs and Psi-mech pilots, but Donald spotted several of his fellow psychics among the bodies. Ringer lay sprawled on his back, his expression a twisted one of pain and horror. The telekinetic’s eyes were gone, eaten out of their sockets. Ringer’s entire face looked to have been gnawed upon by a horde of tiny piranha, though Donald knew it was the worms composing the creature across from him that had done the ghastly work. Tonya lay on the floor near Ringer. There wasn’t much left of her at all, save her head and right arm. Her Glock was clutched tightly in its fingers. Donald studied her head from where he stood and could see the numerous holes that had been burrowed through her skull. Dried blood caked her ears, the nostrils of her nose, and the corners of her wide-open eyes.

Tearing his attention away from his dead friends, Donald looked at the monster. It had no discernable eyes, though he could feel its gaze upon him. Its face, like the rest of its body, was merely a writhing mass of flatworms, moving splashes of white and gray as they wiggled about over each other. Donald continued to stare at the thing as it began to move toward him. Rationally, Donald knew he should run, but he didn’t. He stood his ground. Reminding himself that he had once engaged a vampire in hand-to-hand combat and survived the encounter, he thought it logical that he could do the same now. The monster certainly did not appear to be fast moving as it crept closer to where he stood. That didn’t mean it wasn’t, but Donald believed he had an edge. The thing couldn’t possibly be aware that he could see the future, could it?

As it moved, the creature’s form shimmered and changed. To a normal person, Donald supposed it would appear as if the thing’s physical body was actually transforming, but either because of his own talent or his autism, he knew it wasn’t. The monster was merely projecting how it wanted him to see it into his mind somehow. Within a fraction of a second, its writhing mass was replaced by the appearance of his mother, Katherine Grimm.

“Hello Donald,” the monster purred in his mother’s voice.

“You are not my mother,” Donald said, his voice cold and devoid of emotion.

“No, I am not.” The creature laughed. “I thought you might find this appearance more comforting, though.”

Donald shrugged. “You truly do not understand me. It doesn’t matter how you appear, I know what you are, and that has not changed.”

“Be that as it may,” the thing that looked like Katherine Grimm shrugged, “you and me…we have much to discuss.”

“You can begin by telling me what you are,” Donald told the thing.

“I am…as I have always been, Donald,” the creature said, as if that answered everything.

“You’re immortal?” Donald asked at the creature’s implication of great age.

“Not immortal.” The creature shook its head exactly as his mother would have. “Nothing is truly immortal, Donald. Not even this being you and your friends fear so much.”

“You’re talking about Mavet, the god of death, lord of vampires,” Donald said. “Are you one of his servants?”

The thing that looked like his mother laughed long and loud. “He and I have very little in common, Donald. Mavet wishes to destroy this world and remake it in his image. I crave only to survive and grow.”

“Grow?” Donald kept a sharp eye on the creature, and his precognition dialed in as best it could on its movements.

“To add to myself,” the creature answered. “To absorb, learn, and become more than I am.”

“I see,” Donald said. “And how exactly do you do that?”

“By feeding.” The creature lurched forward at him, the appearance of his mother it had worn gone. Fingers made of twitching worms reached for Donald as he hurled himself sideways to avoid them touching his flesh.

As suddenly as it had lunged for him, the creature was calm again. “Do you understand, Donald?”

“Yes, I believe so.” Donald nodded as he regained his balance again and retreated several more steps from the monster, just to be safe. “You learn and grow by feeing upon us. That is what you were trying to show me, was it not?”

The thing looked like his mother once more as it nodded its head. A smile spread across his mother’s lips as her eyes bored into him. “I am not strong enough yet, Donald…but I am coming for you. I will be coming for all of you who are a part of your little company soon.”

“Then I pity you,” Donald said, his voice still devoid of emotion. “For when you do, you will find us more than ready, and it will be your own life in peril.”

“We shall see, Donald,” the creature said, “we shall see.”

A flash of darkness, not light, exploded in the empty mech hangar before Donald’s eyes, and he knew the monster had departed. Donald awoke, sitting up in his bed, wringing his sheets in his sweat-slicked hands.



* * * * *


Back | Next
Framed