This choice: Possess one of the cheerleaders • Go Back...Chapter #5Someone Gets a Science Project by: Seuzz   The cheerleaders are congregated near the stage, and by their feet you notice a bundle of workout bags—presumably theirs. After what seems like a very long time the girls go walking off, and you seize the chance to slither through the grass like a snake to where they've left their things.
You're very careful about nosing through and among the bags. Never mind getting caught for what you are—the goopy remnants of a high-school student, transformed by a military-industrial accident. The situation would be almost as dire if you were mistaken for a snake! Frantically you search for a way into a bag, but they are all zipped up tightly.
But wait! One of them is not quite closed up—there's but the tiniest gap between the zipper and the edge of the fabric. Threading yourself very thinly indeed, you force your way into it.
It seems to take forever, and you expect at any moment for someone to return and find you, but eventually you are pooled all the way inside the bag, nestled in the dark folds of whatever is inside it. Clothes, you suppose, but you've hardly any sense of touch, and no sense of smell.
After resting a few minutes, you worm your way all the way down to the bottom of the bag.
* * * * *
A very long time passes, during which you have plenty of time to wonder what you're doing and how you're going to do it. Yes, you're going to try possessing another human being, the way you possessed the wolf. But what then? Are you going to simply assume her identity and continue your life by continuing hers? Are you going to try to get in touch with your family, or with Caleb? Are you going to try finding a cure for your condition?
Eventually you decide that you'll just have to wait and see. You're a gelatinous snake hiding in the kit bag of a high-school cheerleader. That's crazy enough to worry about without worrying about what comes next.
* * * * *
It's when the bag turns upside down that you realize you're in motion. It is swung violently from side to side, and you hear voices (loud but indistinct). Something bangs into the side of the bag. Then all is still. Gentle vibrations rock you back and forth.
Then nothing, for a very long time. You're glad you haven't got a human body, or you'd be going crazy from the long confinement.
The sound of a zipper, and you're jostled. Voices, still indistinct. A bright light hits you, and to your horror a face, framed by the edges of the pouch, peers down at you.
She screams and disappears from view.
"Oh, Jesus! That cunt! That fucking—!" "What are you screaming about?" "Look in there! Chelsea, she—!" Another face looks in at you. "Ewwwww!" "I'll fucking kill her!" "What the hell are you all yelling about?" "Get out of here, we—!" "No, show it to him! Marc, just come over here and—" "Nice panties, sis, but— Ow!" "Here, just look in here!" "Not if Jess is gonna—" Another face, this time that of a guy, looks down at you. "Whoa! What the fuck is—?" "It's Chelsea! Chelsea or Kendra! She dropped it in there! Those ... cunts!" "What, you're saying she shat in your workout bag?"
A collective gasp of breath. Then: "Ewwwwwwwww!"
The guy reaches for you, but one of the girls grabs his hand away. "Jesus, Marc, you're not gonna touch it, are you?" "I wanna know what it is." "Well put on some gloves first!" "Just get it the fuck out of here! Dump it out—" "I'm gonna have to get a new bag." "Stop your fucking cursing before Mom and Dad fucking—" Whap. "If you're trying to break your hand, Jess, just keep—" "Just get it out of here!" The bag lurches. "Get it out of—" "What, the whole bag?" "I don't want it anymore!" "Okay, whatever. I'll clean it out, wash it out ... I dunno, do something with it." "You don't even know what that stuff is!" "So I'll find out. I need a chemistry project anyway."
Again the bag lurches.
Chemistry project. Oh, Jesus! You have a quick, vivid picture of yourself being soaked in acid, exposed to toxic gases, set on fire. Only the knowledge that bad things will definitely happen if you move stops you from throwing yourself from the bag and slithering away.
Marc—whoever he is—turns the bag over and dumps you in a cardboard box. He mutters and mumbles as he probes and pushes you with a long nail. Finally, with a "Huh," he closes the box up. You feel yourself being picked up and carried. There's a clatter, and with a thump your box is set down. The flaps open again, and Marc looks in long enough to crinkle his brow over you before shutting the flaps again.
For a very long time you wait, expecting him to return any moment. Then you wait for a much longer time, wondering if you should try to leave the box. Then you wait a very long time before stretching and probing the edges of the box, looking for a way out. There isn't one, except by wriggling out between the flaps atop the box. You stretch a pseudopod and narrow it until it's just a filament that you can thread through a tiny gap at the top without dislodging the flaps. You can see through this pseudopod, like a submarine poking its periscope through the ocean surface.
You're in a bedroom, and by the mess it looks like a boy's bedroom. The bed is a lump of twisted sheets with books and papers stacked atop it. The desk in the corner is another mound of books and papers, and on the tabletop beside the desk is spread out some kind of board game. Clothes are heaped all over the floor. There are trophies and ribbons on shelves along the wall, and posters of music groups and soccer players on the walls.
You watch and wait, working up the courage to find a way out, but a thump and a rumble through the floor alarms you. You've just time to see the door bang open before pulling back into the box and rearranging yourself into a tight puddle. The flaps are pulled open, and the box turned sideways. You're dumped into a plastic bin. Marc pulls up a chair and leans over you.
You suppress a rippling shudder.
He's wearing a cotton mask over his mouth and nose, but his cheeks and his forehead are a ruddy brown from the summertime sun, and his blonde, close-cropped hair sticks up in spikes. His eyes are a bright green, and they twinkle as he stares down at you. He lunges at you with latex-gloved hands, holding in one a pair of tongs, in the other a steak knife.
Oh shit, you think as he slices at you. But you don't feel anything as the knife tears into your flesh.
Then something very peculiar happens. You feel yourself lifted out and dropped onto a hard surface; but at the same time you feel yourself released back into the bin. Marc is staring directly down at you; but he is also staring off at something to the side. He prods at part of you with the knife; but he also prods at something outside the plastic bin that holds you.
It takes you awhile to orient yourself, and it becomes clear only after you have closed some kind of internal eye—shutting yourself in darkness—that it begins to make sense. You feel whole and connected, just as you did before Marc sliced off a bit of you, and where he pokes and pulls at you it feels as though he is poking and pulling at you. And yet, when you open yourself back up so as to look around, you see the pale, translucent walls of a plastic box rising up around you, with Marc peering and frowning at something to the side; and at the same time you see the bedroom, with Marc peering down and frowning directly at you.
My God, you think, and you can't stop yourself from shivering a little. I'm in two pieces—but I'm still connected to myself! It's like having your hand chopped off, but you're able still to feel and move the severed limb.
Marc lets out a low whistle and mumbles "Fuckin' weird," and that reminds you that you have to play dead. For the rest of the afternoon you show no reaction as he pulls, pushes, twists, separates, recombines and noodles with your gelatinous flesh. He leaves for an hour at one point, and when he returns he sits and works at his computer, but his eye will occasionally revert to you.
Eventually night falls, and after leaving and returning to his bedroom a couple of times he returns for good and undresses down to his boxer shorts. He's a muscular kid, with a strong chest, defined six-pack, and big thighs and calves. He studies you with his hands on his hips for a few seconds, then with a shrug he puts out the light an climbs into bed.
The clock reads 12:15 when the regular breathing from his bed tells you that he is likely asleep.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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