Alien Child

Dedicated to Sacculina Carcini


I.

The insect bit Harry's armpit the night he was drinking beer on the terrace of his father's old log cabin, listening to the wind whistling through tree canopies and bird calls echoing from the nearby dark lake. It barely shook him out of his reverie. Some clean and wholesome relaxation in the tranquility of nature, a welcome interlude from the spastically speeding life of metropolis. Yet hardly one without downsides. Harry glanced at his smarting armpit, saw that the insect was still there and mistook it for a tick. Its swollen body sat on his skin, apparently gorging itself on sweet blood.

Harry was feeling too calm and amiable to really mind this miniature vampire's theft of his blood, but he had heard about ticks spreading diseases, and thought it wise to get rid of it. He didn't just rip it off, knowing how a proboscis left in skin could cause an infection, but went inside cabin to get some butter to suffocate the insect. He opened the refrigerator, feeling quite pleased with his practical knowledge, and was just reaching for butter when the tick fell off. It landed on the floor and laid there motionless.

"I'll be damned", thought Harry and probed the tiny thing with his finger. It was dead. "Didn't you like my blood?" He shrugged, mildly amused, and then returned to terrace with another bottle of beer in his hand.

He returned to the city two days later, refreshed and ready to tackle his life head on. In the office, he bragged to a co-worker about being such a badass that even insects die of fright when messing with him, got a barbedly witty reinterpretion of issue and had a good laugh.

When the hunger started three weeks later, he had forgotten everything.


II.

Harry scowled at computer screen, a vile headache throbbing behind his eyes. The program still refused to compute properly despite five hours of debugging. It should have been clear by now, but his head felt fuzzy, and it seemed that he created a new error for every one he fixed.

"What do you say we call it quits for today and go grab a beer?", a co-worker's voice inquired.

"Ah, fuck off." replied Harry, with a hint of malice. He didn't lift his gaze from the screen, but could feel the hurt puzzlement nonetheless. Somehow it didn't bother him. He had been on the edge all day, and this unwanted intrusion into his cubicle felt deeply irritating.

The intruder left without saying another word. Harry tried to return to program but found out he had no interest in it at all. Perhaps it was indeed time to call it quits. Go put something in his stomach. He had gorged himself at McDonalds before launching himself on that program, but felt famished by now. Damned fast food, Harry thought. You stuff yourself with it, feel bloated for a while and before you guess, you're hungry again. He left the office building feeling a bit hostile and drove to a nearby mall, thinking of buying a pizza or something like that, a fast and easy dinner to take his mind off eating.

In supermarket he was suddenly struck by the sheer amount and variety of food that surrounded him. To think he had treated eating as a mere function! His mouth watered when he gazed at those juicy meats, crisp vegetables, succulent sweets and delicious treats, all just waiting there for him to choose what he wanted. In no time his cart was overflowing with all kinds of foods and his hands trembled with feverish anticipation. It wasn't until he was loading them into his car that he thought how abnormal this almost sexual desire was for one as relatively dispassionate about eating as he. But the emptiness gnawing at his stomach soon distracted him.

Harry prepared a feast, eating a massive steak with heaps of french fries, bowl of salad and several heavily laden sandwiches, all flushed down with a litre of beer. Afterwards he settled on the couch, sighing with contentment, to watch the evening's TV shows.

Few hours later, when it was time to go to bed, he was hungry again.


III.

The next days were awful. He felt lethargic and dizzy, and soon he was having sporadic attacks of muscle pain. His efficiency as a worker suffered an almost total collapse, for he couldn't summon an interest in programming or a will to work despite the lack of it. Whenever he got started, he soon found himself munching on some snack he had brought with him. Nothing but eating truly aroused his interest anymore. Life between meals was becoming a gray blur, but when it was time, Harry ate like a starved pig. Still, it seemed like even the heaviest meal couldn't keep the hunger away for long.

Around other workers, Harry felt uncomfortable and somehow harassed. There were strange looks, he thought, muted whispering and conversations abruptly terminated when he came to sight. Often he felt like screaming in their faces, and was invariably rude whenever talked to. For the most part he tried to isolate himself in his cubicle, venturing out only with great reluctance.

By the fourth day, the dull ache in his muscles was persisting most of the time. Now Harry felt ill enough to go see a doctor. He complained about the pains and tiredness, but didn't venture to mention his vastly grown appetite. It was just too weird.

The doctor was confident that it wasn't anything serious, and that Harry should keep a long weekend and rest well. His lips curved into reassuring smile, but to Harry, it looked phony and treacherous. He muttered a few thankful words, and then made a fast exit as soon as he could, dark suspicions welling in his mind. Only when he had reached the privacy of his car did he slowly calm down.

"The doctor is right", he thought. "I need to rest. I'm getting paranoid."

He visited a supermarket on the way home.


IV.

Harry got to rest all right. He laid on the couch for the whole weekend, staring at TV with expressionless eyes. It rarely mattered what program was on. For most of the time, his brain was so empty that even the depressingly stupid soap operas felt watchable. There was tranquility to be found on that couch, a state of waking sleep. If he tried to stand up, he would become aware of his aching body and how drained he felt. Only things that motivated him enough were a painfully full bladder and that recurring need for food.

It was obvious that he was becoming horribly dirty, but it was not until Sunday that he could summon enough determination to haul himself into shower. Feeling lightheaded, he leaned on shower stall's wall while absentmindedly lathing his grimy skin with soap. In few moments his fingers wandered upon something.

A small, hard knob had formed in the flesh of his right armpit. Stunned, Harry stopped soaping himself, then began probing the surroundings, applying some pressure. There were thin tendrils snaking out from the central mass, like a network of wires under his skin. He traced them, finding them to disappear in some places only to resurface elsewhere. The net was thickest in his right arm, but there was no escaping the fact it was everywhere, growing inside him.

At the realization, his mind went blank, instinctively trying to block out the appalling reality. Numbly he turned on the shower and stood there staring at wall, water raining down on him. It was scaldingly hot, but Harry didn't mind. It made him feel like he was fighting against the invader, burning its foul flesh to ashes. He stayed in the shower, clinging to his denial and illusions, until hunger returned like an explosion of emptiness inside him.

After finishing a large meal, he had regained a measure of calm rationality. It could not be denied that things were desperately wrong, and could not be expected to get better by themselves. Obviously he needed professional care, and needed it quickly.

Yet soon Harry started having second thoughts. He had never heard of anything like his affliction. If this was some weird, new disease, would doctors be able to help him? Would they even want to? His stricken body would be a valuable object of research for whitecoats, to be experimented on and coldly dissected once it gave up its grip on life. Harry had read on Internet about government and pharmaceutical industries running secret clinics where foulest kinds of human experiments were conducted. Once he had dismissed all this as delusional ranting, but now he began to wonder.

He walked to the window. Out there, it was raining. Water flowed down the glass, distorting the view, but he could still see that gray concrete jungle spreading in all directions. It all looked so very depressing and hostile. All those icy stares, boiling hatreds and beastly acts of violence. The city's dark emanations enveloped him, filling him with dread and revulsion.

Harry drew the curtains shut. He would call the doctor tomorrow.


V.

With each passing day, he found a new excuse to make that call the next day. A mere idea of being in the presence of other human beings grew steadily more horrid. He phoned work and said he was quitting, refusing adamantly to visit office for any reason whatsoever. During the next few days, his phone rang every now and then. One day, gripped by terrible rage at its insipid tones, Harry recorded an answering machine message that he hoped would insult every caller, switched his phone off and threw it into trashcan. Then he went and dismantled the doorbell. For the rest of day he felt safe and calm, as if he had erected an impassable barrier between his safe haven and the terrible outside.

A week passed. Harry's hair started falling off. His penis grew numb. Muscle aches faded away, replaced by sharp pains in his abdomen. Most of that time Harry spent in empty-eyed stupor, staring at TV or lost in paranoid fantasies about the demon apes lurking outside. Every now and then he understood how insane his state of mind was, but those thoughts were just powerless observations that soon slipped away.

Then he ran out of food. Desperate, he scavenged every unused crumb and morsel, even resorting to going through his trashcan. But to no avail. His ever terrible hunger could not be satiated by some pathetic, half-rotten leftovers. It dawned on him that he would have no choice but to brave the outside. The realization struck him like a collision of two tidal waves, his frothing mind jerked around by paralyzing terror and all-consuming need. It took hours, but eventually the constantly strengthening hunger got upper hand.

Harry looked at himself in the mirror. He had become thin and pale, with those few tufts of hair left standing up randomly from his head. The skin of his face had tightened around his skull, giving him eerily cadaverous appearance. He scowled at the reflection, having no illusions about what the others would think about it.

Few minutes later he walked out of the door, wearing a hooded jacket carefully adjusted to cover his face as far as possible. Even in the car, Harry felt exposed, and when he reached the bright white glare of supermarket lamps, it was as if he was swimming in the ocean of cold rage. Humans stared at him, barely suppressed violence in their eyes, and behind him he could almost hear knives being sharpened. Few times, when the tension became unbearable, he almost lashed out himself. Yet in the end he didn't, for nothing could be allowed to jeopardize the mission of getting the nutrients.

Never in his life had Harry felt so relieved as when it was finally over and dozen bags of cans and packages rested safely in his safe haven. Every muscle in his body wailed with agony, as if he had just ran a marathon, but none of it mattered when he felt he'd never have to go outside again.

Humming a happy little tune, he went to relieve the pressure in his bladder. Such was his relief that he barely noticed the unhealthy gray colour and utter lack of sensation in his member, or that hardly a trickle came out. But when a sharp stab of pain struck between his legs and his shriveled penis fell off, landing in the toilet bowl with barely audible "plop", he woke up.

Hardly believing his eyes, Harry stared at the little gray thing sinking beneath water. Somehow, it brought home the insanity of all that was happening to him. Slowly, he began to weep, first softly, then convulsively. The tendrils pulsed inside him like a malevolent laughter.


VI.

Being summarily castrated by the thing in his flesh was a shocking experience for Harry, but only the first of many. He was being reconstructed for inhuman purposes. An orifice opened up between his legs, scabby, inflamed and leaking sticky fluids that smelled of sickness. Flesh around his nipples swelled into gross parodies of woman's breasts. And his stomach bulged outwards, ever faster, until he couldn't even see his own feet.

Days later, Harry took another look at the mirror. He rarely wore his ill-fitting clothes now, so there was nothing to hide the monstrosity that had been his body. It had been drained of muscle and fat so thoroughly that he looked like a concentration camp prisoner, with stretched skin and sharply jutting bones. The tendrils were clearly visible now, crawling beneath his skin like a rampant cancer. All that was terrible, true abomination, but that gaping red hole between his legs and grotesquely swollen belly were even worse. It shuddered with life, and when Harry put his bony hand on it, he could feel the warm vibrancy underneath. Every drop of vitality in his body had been concentrated there.

Finally, Harry understood what had been happening. He hobbled back to his soiled bed, grabbed a pen and paper, and scrawled two lines.

I have an alien child growing inside me.
I've become nothing but its hungry mouth.

Gradually his fear and hatred started to evaporate, replaced by sublime pride and fierce protectiveness. Wasn't he a mother now? Wasn't he pregnant with a child, a privilege given to no man before? How selfish had he been, despising it for sucking him dry, when there was nothing nobler in the world than a parent sacrificing himself for his child! A small tear of happiness flowed out of Harry's eye. Truly he was blessed.

Last rays of sunlight filtered through the heavy curtains. In the gloom, Harry smiled languidly and closed his eyes.


VII.

Like a puppet on strings, Harry rose from his bed. He swept aside the curtains and pressed his clammy forehead against cold glass. Beyond the dreamy haze that fogged his head, was a city covered by darkness and rain. It had been a realm of terror for Harry, but this night it was all different. He felt a strange attraction towards it, some vast, undefined need.

In his belly, squirming had begun. The waking, restless mass was pushing downwards, against muscle gates barring the way out of its nest. This hurt Harry, but it was delicious pain, a hot, wet pressure whispering promises of orgasmic explosion. For first time in weeks, he felt truly happy, his head awash in smoky euphoria and all the little pains gone, having made way for that heavenly agony between his legs. Harry understood that the great work was nearing its completion; that he had but one thing left to do.

Wearing nothing but a trenchcoat, baggy pants and hastily tied boots, Harry flew out of his apartment. The rain was violent and freezing, but he didn't even notice, for in his mind he ran like a gazelle. His long and graceful leaps were taking him past concrete mountains and metal trees that shone with harsh light. He ran towards a destination he barely knew, guided by vague recollections of some dark, enclosed space. At the thought of it, a new climax of pain hit him, like a needle of white hot metal jabbed into his abdomen from inside. Harry stumbled and almost fell, grabbing a lamppost with one hand and his crotch with another. For a moment he hung on, moaning with pleasure and trying not to erupt right there.

Soon he was on the move again, driven by the insistent burn that had become the center of his existence. In a couple of minutes he arrived at a nearby city park, and found what he had sought. There was a football field, and next to it, a small building where players could change clothes. Underneath was a narrow gap full of rubbish and junk, place where no human ever bothered to look. It was just so perfect.

The pressure was now building fast. Frantically, Harry kicked off his shoes and pants, kneeling on the wet gravel and leaning back to point his hole into the gap. A tremor went through his body, and then, heralded by excruciating agony, came the explosion. A flood of tiny white larvae erupted out of his crotch, mixed with blood and pieces of dead tissue. Awash in pain and pleasure both too intense for him to bear, Harry wailed helplessly. His body was locked in a rigid spasm while his belly went on spraying its inhabitants under the building. It went on for ten seconds, each of which felt too long to ever end. But finally the convulsion ended, his muscles relaxed and he dropped on the ground. A few more larvae crawled out of his orifice. It was over.

He had a short moment of clarity. His lovely child had been a legion of filthy larvae, as if he had been some piece of rotten meat on which flies bred. The understanding filled him with horror and shame. Yet in a matter of seconds these feelings were submerged in another flood of parental love. Harry stood up, full of worry about what would happen to his children should the humans find out what had happened on this spot. His rational side wailed its protests in silent desperation, but to no avail. Working rapidly, Harry scrubbed the worst stains of the wall and gathered all straggling larvae he could find, gently placing them beneath the building. Then, naked but for his trenchcoat, he ran off into the night.

It was still dark when he stopped, and freezing rain still fell. He stood on some anonymous asphalt sidewalk, feet torn and without any idea of where he was. There was terrible void inside him, and weakness that gripped his whole body. Soaked to bone and frozen, he could still feel something warm trickling down his legs. He lifted his coat, and in the harsh glare of street lamps, saw his blood relentlessly streaming out of the orifice. It fell on asphalt hammered by the rain; in a moment it was washed away.

Harry took few stumbling steps into an side alley, and slid down its wall until he had reached a sitting position. So empty he felt now, so hollow. Yet there was also peace inside him, as if he had served his purpose, and could finally be laid to rest. "Perhaps I'll just stay here for awhile", he muttered, closing his eyes. Gradually he began to sink into a tranquil warmth. His head nodded, and soon dropped against his chest. Rain continued falling down upon him, but Harry no longer knew or cared.


Daath
November 2004
All rights repressed