Shokushu High School

NINE

Vicky drove through several more intersections, never slowing, never speeding, until at last Evansfield passed behind her and she was on the open road, heading north. The road ran along the coast for several miles, between broken sections of beach and the high, rocky slope, all invisible to her now as she drove, her gaze still locked straight ahead, her headlights only illuminating the pavement immediately ahead.

She tried to fight off the rigidity in her body, failed. She was afraid, but even her terror was suppressed, her body unable even to tremble.

A car passed, moving the opposite way, then another. All else was darkness.

In time she slowed, turned off the road on an exit that led toward an unfamiliar beach. She had traveled a number of miles, she knew; about half an hour had elapsed on the clock in her dashboard. She felt her foot lift off the accelerator and move to the brake, felt the car slow finally to a stop. She sat for a moment, the headlights illuminating a section of beach, dark water rolling up against it.

A moment passed. Then, from the waves, something crawled.

It was dark, even under the full glare of the headlights. It moved up the sand toward her, approaching the car as she watched in horror.

Oh, God, no. Please, no!

Her hand came free of the wheel, pulled out of gear and pulled up the parking brake. Her other hand moved down, to the latch of her door, releasing it.

The door swung open. She felt the cool sea breeze wash over her legs.

The thing was closer now, moving past the glare of the headlights. Vicky felt her legs swing out, felt as the car lurched a bit, the engine still running, against the brake. She stood, rigid, her body not her own.

It was near the door now.

And it was folding open, like a venus flytrap.

Vicky felt herself move forward, clumsy in her heels, over the rock and toward the thing. She felt as tentacles reached out from inside it, wrapping themselves around her bare arms, around her waist, pulling her toward it and laying her there. She watched as it closed over her, the stars overhead vanishing as it did, as it wrapped tightly around her, holding her still. Something round pressed against her lips and they opened, accepting it into her mouth. Air flowed from this, matching her breathing.

Somehow she knew the thing was moving now and managed to whimper softly in fear.

#

Hours passed; she did not know how many. She knew she had slept, thought as she did that maybe it would all be a dream, that she would wake up and she would be in her dorm room and her things would be packed and it would be time to drive home for the summer.

But it was no dream. Though her body had returned to her there was nothing she could do save to breathe through the thing in her mouth and wait.

They were still in the ocean; she could feel the thing rising and falling a bit as it moved through the water. But were they on the surface, or submerged? It could be either.

Sleep again, maybe. Hard to tell. Her mouth was dry; it was hard to move her tongue with the round thing there. When she could she tried to think.

It was the same as the thing that had been in the dorm basement, though not the same. This thing was smaller and had swallowed her; but it felt the same somehow. Maybe it was the way it took control of her body, made her move as it wanted her to. Maybe it was the way it all seemed like a dream when it did.

Hours more. Sleep. She found that she needed to pee.

Oh, God. Please ....

Something moved, up between her thighs, under her dress, pressed against the crotch of her pantyhose and panties. She felt herself relax, felt the urine flow, felt it disappear into the thing, drawn away from her body and her clothing as though into a sponge.

Sleep. Hours. It held her tightly, pressed against every inch of her body. She began to wonder if she would ever move again.

Sleep.

#

She was awake. Air moved in and out of her lungs, and she felt her body, her limbs, her torso, her head. She felt a terrible emptiness in her stomach that was impossible to ignore.

In the darkness she rose and fell as the thing moved across the waves.

And then there came the bump.

Just a little bump, beneath her back, as the thing hit something solid. Then the wave motion was gone and she felt the thing moving across something hard, something that did not give.

It stopped. For a moment it sat motionless. Then the ball pulled free of her mouth and the thing opened.

Vicky gasped, her jaw stiff, sore. She blinked, disoriented, and looked up.

Stars, faint in mist.

She sat up, slowly. Her body ached from the inactivity and for a moment she felt dizzy. She bent forward, put her head between her knees, reached out, past the edge of the thing.

Sand. After a few minutes she looked up.

Another beach; a different beach. Water lapped quietly a few feet from her, the sound of it soothing. It was getting lighter, as though the sun was close to rising.

The thing had not moved since opening; now it became animate again, and as it did Vicky felt her body stiffen again. She stood, though this was hard; she was still wearing her heeled sandals and she felt as sand worked up between her toes. Then she turned.

There was a steep face at the edge of the beach. Some vegetation there, a lot of rocks. She watched as the thing moved up the rocks, up into the growth, and she felt her own legs moving now, moving after it, slowly in her sandals, climbing carefully up after it, using her hands to help.

This took some time. Eventually she reached the top of the face.

A series of rocks were there, facing the ocean. They lay stacked, one against the other, some room between them for earth, for a few hardy shrubs. The thing was waiting at one of these points, and as Vicky approached she saw that there was a narrow opening here, and that the thing easily slipped into it.

No .... she thought. No ....

But she followed, not wanting to. It was morning now, long shadows cast over the beach by the rising sun.

#

Inside, a chamber existed between the two layers of rock. It had a flattened floor and was illuminated through the entrance above and a narrow crack in the outer stone. Vicky climbed down, stood. The thing sat on the floor before her, dark and indistinct as her eyes adjusted to the dimness. Then it moved, folded open again, revealed a mass of tentacles, red and pink. She wanted to run but could not, as she felt her body move, acting as it commanded.

Arms and hands first, reaching up to her ears, taking off her earrings, then her necklace, her bracelet, setting these on the rock floor beside her. Straightening, hands moving back, to the zipper of her short dress. She pulled this down, drew the garment forward and off her shoulders, then let it drop to the floor of the small cavern. Stepping from it, she bent over and undid the straps of her sandals, drew her feet from them and felt the smooth floor against the soles of her feet through the thin nylon of her pantyhose. She could feel her heart racing despite the thing's control, could feel her breath quicken.

She reached for the waistband of her hose, peeled them down her long legs, sat against the cool rock as she pulled them, a little ball, from her feet. Then she reached back and undid her bra, her firm, rounded breasts coming free as she lay it with her other clothing.

Had there been doubt before about what would happen now, it was gone.

Vicky stood before the thing, naked save for her tiny lace panties.

Her hands came up, hooked into the waistband. She felt the soft material move over her buttocks, down her thighs, felt her skin warm beneath it as the panties reached her knees, all rolled up from the motion, then settled to her ankles, where she kicked them away. She stepped forward, to the thing, lay on her back atop it, parted her thighs widely. She could feel her vulva, moist and exposed, in the cool air. She could feel her breasts, rounded and firm, her nipples hard now with the arousal she could not deny. For she remembered now, every delicious moment, all fading save for the reality of herself and the reality of the thing, and the pleasure and the joy that she was.

Tentacles wrapped around her belly, her thighs, her arms, holding them. More extended as she lay her head back, moving tightly around her breasts, squeezing as they caressed her. And then, moving up her inner thigh, she felt the tendril, wet and long and hard, pausing to caress teasingly at her labia, nuzzling there for a moment as she moaned helplessly, then driving into her.

Vicky screamed out in passion as she was filled, as it drove into her again and again, as she climaxed around it, as she felt it spurt up into her even as her body spasmed against the thing's iron grip.

It did not choose to stop for quite some time.

TEN

Before, they had underestimated the defenders of the small, blue world. They had sensed the increased energy signatures, had located them, had sought them out directly. It had not taken long to master this species' means of communication, had not taken long to infiltrate their police force. They had assumed that these creatures, so hierarchical, so organized and structured, would simply obey and help them wipe the defenders away.

They had not expected the energy signatures to be new weapons, had not expected that a single girl would be able to kill their advance party in an instant. They had not respected these sentients, or those who sought to defend them.

They would not make this mistake again.

They would take their time now, would learn. Though the energy signatures were fading fast as the tendrils approached the blue world, they were able to note that they were no longer all clustered together. Some had scattered; three of them were not too far away, but a fourth was at a distance. The tendrils watched this one from orbit as they floated like wisps of nothing, invisible to the massive radar scans of their prey, as they watched her and planned.

This one, the fourth, was vulnerable. They would concentrate on her.

They knew that the weapons in her were deadly, overpowering. Unless there was a defense, a way to protect themselves, they knew they would never take this world, would never enjoy the pain of its sentients.

Patience was called for, and observation.

They noted others around the girl, notably a male who lived in her dwelling. This one was older and from what they knew they guessed him to be a relative, one generation removed. There were others, too, in the settlement; the hierarchy and persons of importance were easy to determine. Control should be easy to establish, if they chose the right victims. This would allow closer observation, and would allow them to isolate the girl.

But they would be cautious, too.

They knew how dangerous she could be.

#

The first phase went easily. Persons in authority, persons with access to equipment that would aid in the investigation. There was no resistance, and within minutes the tendrils, now white-hot with hunger and anticipation, were securely in the minds of their victims.

The male relative was particularly pleasant to hurt.

ELEVEN

An awareness of time was not a luxury it permitted her. There would be light, sometimes, filtering into the small cavern from above, but there was no way to tell if it was morning or evening or midday. Perhaps had she had time to observe the movement of the light, to watch the angles of shadows on the back wall, she would have been able to tell. But concentration was impossible.

There was only her, and it, and the impossible pleasure it made her feel, again and again, as it took her.

She was on her belly now, atop the thing, her face held comfortably, as she gasped for air, crying out as she climaxed again, then again, as she felt the thing, long and hard and wet, pistoning in and out of her vagina, its rippled edge dancing against her clitoris, her thighs wet with its lust and her lust, as it ejaculated up into her again.

She screamed out, her cry echoing in the chamber as she orgasmed, whimpering then as it continued, her body quivering under its attentions. She felt another tendril move, pressing gently against her anus, caressing there as she climaxed again.

How long had it been?

In a part of her mind Vicky remembered the first time, as it had taken her and she had come, as her body had reacted helplessly to its touch, squirming in its embrace as it ejaculated again and again into her. She remembered how time had passed unnoticed in the pleasure of orgasm after orgasm, until at last it had stopped and she had lain there, unable to move, and then how another tendril had pressed against her lips and sated her terrible hunger.

#

Awareness came now. When was now?

Was this the first time?

She was curled up against the thing, moaning softly, sucking on the tentacle it had pressed to her lips. She was aware of how sexual this was as she sucked, as she felt her naked body squirm a bit against the side of the thing, savoring the feeling of the tentacle in her mouth.

Obligingly, it spurted, the taste of it sweet against her tongue. Ravenous, Vicky swallowed, sucking harder, begging it for more. And more came, again and again, filling her empty belly.

#

She lay back, felt the soft surface of the thing beneath her. Without thinking and without its command she parted her thighs, revealing her moist sex. Tentacles gripped her then, holding her in place, and she felt the thing move up to her, moaned softly as it caressed at her vulva. She tired to think, tried to concentrate, but failed.

Please take me please take me take me take me ....

It pushed forward. She felt her labia part to accept it, squirmed as she felt it push in deeply.

It began to thrust and she began to come.

#

It had discovered her breasts. When, she did not know, but now in addition to having her lie on her back or on her belly when it did her it had taken to having her sit, her legs widely spread to accommodate the tentacle in her vagina, even as more tentacles held her arms.

This done, it would send a pair of tendrils to her breasts, wrapping around them, squeezing in rhythm with the tentacle between her thighs, caressing her nipples, teasing still more pleasure from her body.

At first this was horrifying. In the other positions it was difficult or impossible to see what it was doing to her; what she knew came from feeling. Vicky had seen other girls taken, back at the dorm, but never up close. And now it was her, and she watched as the thing moved up her thigh, its phallic head wet, ridged behind this, dark red and pink, looking not quite human but human enough, pushing then deeply into her, glistening wet as it pistoned in and out.

Her breasts were next. She had always loved her breasts, their perfect, rounded shape, the way they felt on her body, the way they felt when touched. They were special to her. This was not the first time the thing had touched them, of course; even back in the dorm basement it would often caress your breasts as you lay on your back. But in this position, sitting, the attentions to your body were easier to see, impossible to deny.

She moaned, then cried out helplessly. It had her thighs up and far apart and as it ejaculated she orgasmed hard, the grip on her breasts increasing even as the tips of the tentacles toyed with her nipples, even as they bounced just a bit from the force of its thrusting.

It was not merciful with her, and took her hard. She spasmed as it did, consciousness itself becoming fleeting as she climaxed again and again.

#

All was sexual. Her body seemed no longer to be a thing of flesh and blood, of arms and legs. It was sexual only: her vagina, her breasts, her lips and mouth. It was only the orgasm, the joy and the pleasure of being penetrated, of feeling it in her, of feeling it against her. She was utterly and totally female, instinctively so, her lust now primal, total.

She was on her belly again, her hips and neck and face supported, her buttocks up high, like an animal. There had been feedings, she remembered, when she would suck the sweet juice from the tentacle, nuzzling it, moaning softly. And there had been sleep, so deep as to be indistinct, and then awakenings, to feel and be as it took her again.

It was thrusting, driving in hard, again and again. Vicky orgasmed, crying out. It thrust again, ejaculated again, the hot liquid filling her. Another orgasm then, indistinct from the one that would follow.

Vagina is female is joy.

You are this, now.

And then, she saw.

#

In a way it had always been there, or it seemed that way. Like she was not in her body at all, like the thing that was Vicky was just a beginning point, a focus. It was a red grid, lines existing in three dimensions, and as she orgasmed again she saw that in the red grid, through the red grid, she knew.

Knew?

There. The rock wall of the cavern. Its constituents, its elements and its molecules.

There. The shrub just outside the entrance to the cave. Life, chlorophyll, water.

There. This is an island, a short way off the coast. The coast is rocky, broken, inaccessible.

There. In the sea, miles and miles away, a shark hunts its prey.

She knew.

TWELVE

As days passed, Nicole was relieved to see that her lust was receding. That is not to say, of course, that it wasn't still there, but she found that the less she feared it, the less she saw it as a sin, the less intrusive it became. When it did come it was often just a passing moment; talking with Jim at the hardware store and appreciating how he looked, or even just walking down the street and passing an attractive man. She would look, take notice, go on.

At other times it was more intense, for the memories of the thing in the basement, and of how it had made her feel, were still strong. But she found that when these thoughts came it was helpful to recall the Minister's words, and she began to see the feelings as a gift, something she would give to the right man, as his wife. She would think about this, imagining him beside her, imagining his touch as she gave herself completely to him.

Every erotic thought that came to her Nicole would pass through this, and she would fantasize then, about how she would pleasure her husband and he would pleasure her. Occasionally, during the day, she would lie naked on her bed and masturbate to these thoughts, moaning softly with pleasure.

#

Her father talked little, simply went through his daily routine, to work and back again. He started going out on Saturdays too, and she found herself praying alone at dinner and wondering why he wasn't there. He never said where he was going, or when he would be back.

When he was home he watched her all the time. One night, as she was closing her door to change for bed, he reached out and stopped her.

"Keep your door open," he said.

She looked at him. "Why?"

"So I can see you if I need to."

This didn't make sense but she didn't protest. Instead she changed into her nightshirt in the bathroom, wondering what this meant. He passed by the open door as she was climbing into bed, looked at her a moment, his eyes expressionless.

The next day she went into town and bought herself a heavy flannel nightgown to wear.

#

One night she set his dinner down before him and he sniffed at it, picked up his fork, and nibbled at a piece of meat.

"Daddy?" she asked.

He looked over at her.

"Grace?" she asked.

A moment passed and he didn't move. Then he set the fork down.

"You do it," he said.

This caught her off guard. He had always told her that it was the man's place to lead prayer. She folded her hands in front of her, spoke softly.

"Lord, thank you for the bounty we are about to receive, and for your son, who died that we might have eternal life. Amen."

He nodded. "Good. Very good. All right."

They ate. His eyes never left her.

#

Later that night they sat together in the living room. She had hoped to watch some television, maybe a documentary, but when she turned the TV on he had shaken his head and taken the remote and shut it off again.

"Nicole," he said after a few minutes of silence. "Tell me what happened at the college."

She looked up at him, then down, at the floor. How much did he know? Had the Minister told him of her confession, of their conversation? Had someone figured out what the thing had been and told him?

She knew her father; he would not understand. Had she simply been raped, that would have been one thing, but the thing in the basement hadn't been human and she had enjoyed what it had done, what it had made her feel. He would see this as weakness, as sin.

"Nicole?" he prodded.

"I can't," she said softly.

"You can't, or you won't?"

"I can't!" she snapped, unexpectedly.

His eyes went wide and for a second she thought she saw fear there. Then he nodded.

"All right. All right. Go to bed, Nicole. I need to think."

THIRTEEN

A storm came in, off the coast, lashed the rock outside with rain and wind. Water dripped down into the cave, giving it a chill that was unusual for the summer. As the storm went on she lay wrapped in the thing, only her face exposed to the air, her body warm, as though she was wrapped in a sleeping bag. She had grown used to the feel of tentacles against her bare flesh, to the way they wiggled and moved against her sometimes, caressing her, even when she was resting.

A sense of day and night had returned, and when Vicky awoke after the storm the air smelled fresh, clean. She stretched in her place, felt the tentacles squirm a bit against her as she did. It would take her soon, but this had long ago become an inevitability and for now she simply savored the moment.

The thing opened. A rush of cool air washed over her, and she sat up.

Across the chamber, lying on the rock, were her panties.

She did not remember when she had last seen them. Maybe that first morning, when she had stripped for the thing; when had that been? She had a faint memory of them rolling up as she had peeled them down her legs, just a little ball of lace and satin as she had kicked them away.

They didn't look that way now, though. They were laid out flat on the rock now.

She didn't move. Her panties didn't matter; nothing mattered anymore, because it was going to take her soon and then awareness would fade again with the pleasure and the red grid that she always saw now. Reality would be seen through this.

She felt a nudge. These were not real nudges but rather were a twitch of one of her muscles here or there. The thing no longer took complete control of her, no longer needed to. Her positions were few and she assumed them without resistance, and it had taken to nudging her like this when it wanted her to move a certain way.

It nudged her again, her legs moving just a bit, toward the panties.

Vicky crawled to them.

They were clean; so clean they might as well have been new. She reached out, touched the soft material. She remembered selecting them, white satin and lace bikinis with the bra to match, thinking whimsically to herself that maybe, just maybe, Jack might seduce her on their date and he would like her in them if he did.

Jack.

She had not thought about him in a very long time. Where would he be, right now? Did he think of her, wonder about her? The faces of her parents and her brother came to mind then and she wondered about them, what they must be feeling.

They must be worried to death, she thought.

It nudged her again. She took the panties, stood and stepped into them. It felt a bit odd to have fabric against her skin; she hadn't worn clothing in a long time. But it felt good, too, somehow.

Was it not going to take her? Was it letting her go?

She felt herself nudged up the slope toward the exit, went willingly.

#

More freedom, but not complete. Her days passed with a new regimen; it would awaken her early, and she would suckle at it for a time, curled up against it, the thing in her mouth spurting as she swallowed, sating her hunger and thirst. This seemed less sexual than it had been; now she pictured herself as an infant at her mother's teat, and found it pleasurable to cuddle against the warm tentacles as it fed her.

When she had finished, the next time was her own. It would nudge her out the entrance, let her explore the island. This was always early in the day, before the sun was very high. Her feet grew quickly callused as she wandered day after day, enjoying the freedom to move, the feel of the open air. Sometimes in the late afternoon it would let her wander also, before summoning her back to be fed and to sleep. The feeding tentacle would be there as she slept, and she often awoke with it in her mouth, satisfying thirst and hunger through the night.

The island itself was small. On one side, not quite facing the open ocean, there was a small natural beach, rocks on either side. This was directly below the rock face that held her cave, and she supposed it was where it had brought her up that first day. She was not the first to have visited this island, however. At one edge of the beach was an old circle of stones, their inner edges darkened from fire, a few pieces of charred wood still remaining. But it had been a long time since the campfire had been used, and her initial excitement about it was short lived.

Towards the coast, the terrain grew rocky. Trees and shrubs clung to the rock, and there was a place she could climb and look out at the mainland. The distance to the coast was not great; less than a mile, but the water in the channel foamed and twisted as she watched, and the land directly across was rocky and forbidding.

There were other features, too, that came to be familiar to her as she explored. The group of rocks on the north side, near where she would go to the bathroom, forming a declining series of points as they disappeared into the ocean, or the spot where seagulls had built a nest that she was careful to leave alone. It was her little kingdom, this place, though not quite a home.

She thought about home a lot.

She did not know how long she had been here; it was summer, the days still long, but each seemed to meld into the last and into the next and there was no way to keep track of them. Once she had started a little pile of stones on a rock by the beach, adding one every day, but another storm had come and the waves had scattered them. She could remember having had at least one period; she had been due a week after the end of the semester, but it seemed much longer than that and maybe she was remembering two of them; it was hard to say. The blood had not stopped the thing, had not seemed to matter to it at all save that when she slept it pressed a tentacle up against her vulva and she awoke clean. There hadn't been any cramps, either.

The skin of her legs and underarms was smooth, like she had just shaved the day before. Her fingernails and toenails would grow, and then she would wake up and they would be short, trimmed. She supposed that this too was the work of the thing, though she wasn't sure how or why it did it.

She thought about her life, the things she missed.

A hamburger and a milkshake. Shopping. Dancing. Talking with her friends, with anyone.

She missed conversation most of all.

The time would come then, when she would feel the nudge, calling her back to the chamber in the rock. The first time, she had resisted, had decided she wasn't going to go, had decided that now that it had let her out, she would escape, would make the dangerous swim to the mainland. But then the stiffness had come over her and she had returned anyway, like a puppet.

Now she obeyed when she felt it call, returned to it, stood before it and pulled her panties down. It kept her in them when it was not busy with her, and every morning they would be there, beside it, clean and dry. But these were the only garment it allowed; her dress and other clothes were nowhere to be seen. She wondered why the panties were so important to it.

Not that this mattered.

Her days were spent being done, the tentacle up inside her, making her orgasm again and again. This was what she had called it, back in the dorm: "doing me". One morning she had sat on the beach, feeling the surf flow up between her toes, and had wondered if any word would better describe what was happening to her. "Rape" came to mind, but she remembered what Judy and Patricia had said and knew it was true; though she was a captive here and had no choice but to spread her legs for the thing, there was no sense of hostility from it, or even a sense that it was male; only a certainty that it would do what it would do. In fact she seemed important to it; it kept her warm at night, kept her well fed, let her roam for exercise.

And it made her feel things that she did not know she could feel. It was pleasure now, sexual, ecstatic, feral. It was her femininity, with certainty, and there was no sense of struggle or conflict as there so often was with a man, no gender politics, no submission to anything save her own sexuality. This brought with it a freedom that stood in sharp contrast to her captivity here, a freedom to be sexual, utterly, to scream out with passion and to be, without reservation and without risk, a woman.

She had considered "fucked", but though this was accurate, it was too vulgar for the joy she felt. "Used" was not right either; she didn't have the sense it was using her, not the way some men did with sex. In the end she found there was no word, really, that described what was being done to her, and so she simply settled back on "doing". It was doing her, every day, through the day, taking her and making her feel the same impossible pleasure.

By the end of the day, when it was finished, her labia would be swollen, tender, her belly feeling strange because there was nothing in her. And at night, a tendril would squirm between her thighs and up against her vulva and press against it as she slept, sticky with some kind of cool gel that took the rawness away. She would awaken and check herself as best she could, and every morning it would be the same; her labia were fine.

And it would do her for another full day.

Had she not missed home so much, had she not longed so to hear another human voice, to talk to her friends, her family, to Jack, she would have been happy.

Now Vicky stood before the thing, kicking her panties away, then moved as it directed, lying back atop it, spreading her thighs widely. It gripped her, held her, the hard tentacle slithering up between her thighs and entering her easily, two more gripping her breasts.

She cried out, orgasmed instantly. And the red grid was there.

#

She liked the red grid. She didn't know what it was, or why it happened, but when it came it was as though she could see beyond, outside herself. It was not something she normally experienced; only when she was being done, in the glow of her orgasms, was it there.

It let her see. Not just the surface of things, but inside them. And not only what they were made of, but more. It was as though everything in the universe had a unique signature, and in the grid you could see this, could remember it. It let you see out, at a distance of a few miles, and in that sphere you were utterly aware.

She saw also that in this range there were no other human beings.

The tentacle thrusted again, deeply, spurting into her as it did. Vicky cried out, climaxing, screaming at the pleasure of it, then climaxing again.

In the red grid, she felt the nudge, directing her attention.

There was a small pebble on one side of the cavern; she saw it, saw its composition, its structure. She saw that along a certain point there ran a microscopic crack, saw that in one, tiny place, this pebble was bound together, held.

Vicky screamed out again, felt the tentacle drive deeply, filling her as she orgasmed.

She focused in on the point.

Another thrust. She felt the tentacle ejaculate, explosively, filling her.

#

An instant, a moment, an eternity.

A million tiny needles, exploding out from her as she cried out, as she climaxed, hard, around the tendril. The tiny needles shooting for the pebble, for the point within it, as she guided them, more by instinct than conscious thought, across the small cave and to their target.

POP!

Vicky collapsed, moaning softly, as the tentacle withdrew from her. The thing wrapped around her and held her close, tentacles caressing her as exhaustion came and with it sleep.

FOURTEEN

Despite the heavy nightgown, Nicole didn't like having her door open at night. It had been all right when she was little, when sometimes she would have nightmares and he would be able to hear her through the open door, would be able to come to her and comfort her, but as she had grown older her privacy had become more important.

He wasn't supposed to see her naked, or in her underwear. She knew this because he had said it himself, and he had never once protested when she had started keeping the door closed. So now, after he had gone to bed, Nicole started closing her door anyway, despite what he had told her.

And every morning it would be open again.

What is wrong with him?

He spoke little, his words usually short commands, given without explanation. He had always been a quiet man but this was different, as though there was something missing in his tone when he spoke, something familiar and comfortable. She still cooked and cleaned, but he never acknowledged it like he had before, never complimented her on dinner or on how the house looked.

Three days a week she still went and worked at the church. Wells did appreciate her, and he let her know it. Maybe he had said something to the gossipy ladies of the church, too, because they didn't stare at her like they had before. He always had a basket of oranges in his office and every day he would share them with her, insisting she take a break.

It was only a matter of time before she asked him about her father.

Wells nodded as she spoke, peeling with his fingers.

"Your father is a good man," he said. "His faith is strong. But he's been through a lot, too. He never had much family himself, and when your mother died he took it hard."

Nicole nodded. "But he's not the same as he was. He makes me say grace at the table; he never used to do that."

"Maybe he is recognizing that you are grown up. Maybe he wants you to be more independent. You know, Nicole, there are some things in life I am absolutely certain of, and one of those things is that your father loves you. No man I have ever known loves his daughter more than he loves you."

She dug her nails into the orange, pulled back a section of peel. "But he won't let me close the door to my room," she said softly. "He said he needed to watch me."

The Minister was silent for a moment. "That is odd," he said. "He just watches? Is there anything more he does that isn't right?"

She knew what he was getting at, shook her head. Wells put the half peeled orange down on his desk.

"I'll talk to him," he said.

#

The weekend passed and once again she spent Saturday night alone with her Bible. Her father did go to church with her on Sunday, and after the service Wells asked her to meet with some of the other women to help plan the Labor Day picnic. She did, and she saw him ask her father into his office.

Later, they drove home silently. She cooked dinner and watched him, wondering why he wouldn't speak.

"Is it all right?" she asked as he ate.

"Fine."

The next day she woke up to find him standing beside her bed, fully dressed.

"Get up," he said.

She looked at her clock. It was early, still dim outside, her alarm not set to go off for another half hour.

"What is it?" she asked.

"You're going to the doctor. Get up." He pulled back her blankets.

She obeyed, rising. He went to he dresser, opened the top drawer, reached in and grabbed some underwear, tossed it to the bed.

"Get dressed."

She shuddered at this small violation. "I can do it," she said.

He looked at her, hesitated.

"All right. Be quick."

She took the underwear, selected a skirt and blouse, carried these to the bathroom, locked the door and dressed. Her hands were trembling and it was hard to button her blouse, and she could hear him just outside the door, pacing. Her hair was mussed from sleep; she brushed it quickly, opened the door.

He directed her outside. It was chilly and she realized that she didn't have a coat.

"Get in the car."

She did, pulled on the seatbelt. She wondered what she was doing, what she should do. There was a new feeling in her now, unfamiliar, and as he climbed in and they drove away from the house it came to her, slowly, what it was.

For the first time she could remember, she was really afraid of him.

#

They drove for a time. It was still dim outside and the streets were quiet. He spoke again.

"You are to stop going to work at the church," he said. "You are to stay home all the time from now on."

"Please ...." she said softly.

"You are to stay home. You are not to leave the house, unless it is with me. Do you understand?"

She said nothing.

"You are not to speak with the Minister, ever. You are not to answer the phone or the door. Do you understand, Nicole?"

"Please ...." she said again.

They pulled into the lot by the doctor's office, only it wasn't her doctor. When she had reached puberty her father had insisted that her doctor be a woman, and that meant Dr. Lang. But this was another office, nowhere near hers.

He engaged the parking break, turned off the engine.

"Do you understand what I am telling you, Nicole?"

She didn't know what to do. It was like it was his voice, but not him. Finally she nodded.

"Good," he said.

He led her inside, holding her at the elbow. The waiting room was empty but a man was in the office. She recognized him.

Dr. Tanner. He was her father's physician. He looked at her now, eyes roaming up and down.

"In here," he said.

He father led her to an examination room.

"Sit," he said. "On the examination table."

She did so.

"Am I sick?" she asked suddenly.

Dr. Tanner pulled on a pair of latex gloves, went to the group of instruments by the table, raised a syringe. "Roll up your sleeve."

Nicole hesitated. He took her arm tied it off with a rubber tourniquet just below the shoulder. Then he held her wrist tightly, unbuttoned her cuff and exposed her forearm. Slapping at the vein at her elbow, he then dabbed it with alcohol and jammed the needle in. She gasped at the sting, did not move as her blood filled the syringe.

He took a lot of it; several vials. She looked over at her father as Dr. Tanner took the blood, pleading with her eyes, but though he watched, he gave no sign of a response.

Finally Dr. Tanner pulled out the needle, pressed a piece of gauze against the wound, taped it roughly. He handed her a small glass cup.

"Spit into this. No mucus; just saliva."

She did so.

"Hold still now." He reached up, gripped her head, pushed a swab up into her nose. She whimpered; it hurt as he moved it around. At last he pulled it out, set it in a tray. Then he handed her a small, lidded specimen cup. "Fill this with urine."

She took it, got off the table and managed one step toward the door. Dr. Tanner reached up and gripped her arm.

"Where are you going?"

"The bathroom?" she asked meekly.

Dr. Tanner looked at her father, who looked back at him. Then her father nodded. Dr. Tanner let go of her arm and she stepped down the hall to the bathroom. They followed her, stood outside the door as she filled the cup and sealed it. Her father knocked, hard, after only a few minutes.

"This will do for today," Dr. Tanner told her father as she handed him the specimen cup. "I'll let you know what we find."

"Good," her father answered, and he took her by the elbow and directed her out the door and back to the car.

#

Her father left her alone for the rest of the day, just let her lie on her bed, holding her pillow to her chest. There was so much wrong that she wasn't able to define it. He had changed, somehow; there was a cruelty to him that hadn't been there before, and with it a distance from her feelings, her fears. Before he had always been able to tell when she was unhappy, or afraid; now, if he did see it, he made no indication that he had.

He didn't go in to work much, either, and this was quite unlike him. Instead he stayed around the house, watching her. Once, when he was gone, she had taken the phone to call Minister Wells, but there was no dial tone. She checked the phone, saw that the jack had been ripped out of the wall. The same was true of the jack in the kitchen, and the one in his bedroom.

She was about to go across the street, ask Mrs. Phillips for help, when her father returned. He saw her and said nothing, locked the door behind him.

Two days later he brought her back to Dr. Tanner. Again, it was early in the morning. Two others were there too, and she recognized them both from church: the mayor and the chief of police. She sat in the waiting room as they talked for a few minutes in the office. Then they emerged, approached her. Her father took her by the arm and pulled her forward.

"This way," Dr. Tanner said, indicating another room.

FIFTEEN

Her period came again, but as before it made no difference in her daily routine. Again there was the tentacle as she slept, pressed up against her vulva, keeping her clean, and each of the three days she bled was the same.

This meant two periods, maybe three. At least two months, then. It didn't seem like two months; her days were filled with distraction as the thing did her, the time lost in the ecstasy of orgasm after orgasm. It was conditioning her, she knew. It took only the slightest nudge now for her to get on her back, or on her belly, or to sit, and spread her thighs for it. The nudges themselves had become a kind of language, directing her so it might pleasure her more. Because that was it, really: as time had passed and her resistance had weakened, the pleasure of the tentacle inside her had only grown. Never before had Vicky felt so feminine, so content with her body, so beautiful. Being female meant such joy to her now that it was impossible to imagine being anything else, anyone else.

Yet she was lonely, too.

Maybe it was that she was so female. She thought about this a few days later, as she walked in the surf along the beach during her free time in the morning, feeling the sand between her toes. She thought about men as she walked, looking down at the old campfire. She thought about Jack.

Why be female if there are no men? she thought. She brought her hands up, caressed at her breasts. The skin was soft, the flesh supple, firm. A man would know how to touch them, would know how to kiss them. A man would know how to make love to her and then, afterwards, he would lie beside her and hold her and whisper his love to her. A good man, maybe like Jack.

It would not be the same as the thing here.

She caressed for a while, sitting by the waves, then stopped. It was nice, but her hands were a poor substitute for the ones she wanted.

She thought about turkey, the kind Mom made at Thanksgiving, with all the trimmings and stuffing and sweet potatoes. The smell would permeate the house and while it cooked they would all put on their coats and go for a walk in the cool autumn air. She remembered the song, too, that people always sang at Thanksgiving, and she sang it softly, her voice faint from disuse.

"We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing ...."

Their faces were there, suddenly, in her mind's eye, and the words of the song faded as quickly as they had come. Her mother and her father and her brother. And with their faces came other memories, memories of parents pleading on the evening news, their child kidnapped, missing. There was a particular horror to those stories, a particular pain that she could only guess at, the kind that made your stomach turn. And now, just now, it came to Vicky that the parents on the evening news would be her own now, wondering, not knowing, fearing and pleading.

A sob escaped her lips. She felt her legs grow weak and she went to her knees, tears flowing as she wept, as she buried her face in her arms at the thought of their pain. This was the hardest, more than she could bear, more than anything that had been done to her or that could be done to her.

Because pain in those you love is the most terrible pain of all.

After a long while the nudge came. Her time outside was over. Vicky raised her head, wiped the moisture from her cheeks, wiped her nose with her forearm. It would be welcome, almost, this time, when it took her. Welcome almost because when she orgasmed their faces would recede and their pain would recede with it, washed away in the rush of impossible pleasure that she did not deserve to feel, knowing that they, back at home, hurt so. Vicky stood up from the rock, climbed up to the entrance of the cave, pushed the bush aside and slipped down inside. In the low light she saw the thing, opened and animate, tentacles moving. She stepped forward, hooked her fingers into the waistband of her panties, peeled them down her legs, kicked them aside.

Another nudge came, and she understood. It would do her on her belly today. She moved to it, lay flat, raised her buttocks and parted her thighs. It wrapped around her, held her. Gently but with certainty, it penetrated her, and she climaxed quickly and loudly as it ejaculated.

The red grid was there.

#

She had learned to control it now, to focus it where she wanted, to aim the little needles, to watch as they exploded out of her, flying true. They emerged in moments of passion, extreme passion, when all of reality faded and she was only her orgasm, only the ring of joy stretched tightly by the thing within her. More and more, though, she could aim them, direct them.

Stones were the usual target. After some time with the one pebble she had though to go and look at it after she was fed, just to see if it was an actual pebble or just part of her imagination. It took her a little while to find it because it was two pebbles now.

Interesting.

#

Days passed. Morning again. She was up on the island now, where the trees and brush were. It was a lovely day and she had taken some time to look over at the mainland, to watch as the surf foamed against the rock there. There was a bit of a breeze, and now she stood and closed her eyes, letting it wash through her hair, over her face, her bare breasts, her belly and thighs.

The nudge would come soon, but she didn't want it to. It was too nice out.

She opened her eyes again, ran her fingers through her hair. Across the way, out from the coast, there seemed to be something moving.

A boat.

#

Vicky drew in a sharp gasp, strained to get a better look. It was a sailboat, with two masts, bouncing there up and down in the swell of the ocean, not so far away, and it was moving in the direction of her island.

She could almost make out people on board. Could they see her?

The nudge came then, hard.

She fought it, held her ground. There wouldn't be much chance; she had to hurry. She opened her mouth to scream, reached up to shake the nearby tree.

And her body went stiff.

Vicky spasmed, struggling against it as she felt herself become a puppet again, her arms going to her sides and her feet moving forward, one ahead of the other now, stepping quickly back to the cave. She could see as she did that the boat was drawing closer; could they see her?

Please, let them see her.

She felt her hand pull the bush away from the hole, felt herself climb into the chamber, pull the bush back over the entrance. Inside, the thing was open; she felt it draw her close, lie her down, close over her tightly. Control of her body returned and she tried to struggle, but its hold was tight. A tentacle came up, the head round and full, pressed against her lips. She whimpered now, opened her mouth, felt it press inside, felt air flowing through it.

Then the thing closed over her face and all was dark. Vicky whimpered again, the tentacles pressing against every square inch of her body, holding her completely still.

#

Options? those in the tiny ship asked of each other. Options?

This is dangerous. If the sentients land here and we are discovered ....

The training must not be interrupted. The female is making important progress.

These are social beings. They will take note of the female if they find her.

Then they must not find her.

They watched, through their sensors, as the water craft stopped, threw out an anchor, as a smaller craft was lowered over the side and approached the beach. Two males emerged from this craft, towing it with ropes, pulling the bow up on the sand. At the rear a female shut off the motor. Two young and another female were still in the craft as well.

And if they do? We need options.

They would not be difficult to terminate.

Unacceptable. Termination would only bring more sentients. And we did not come to this world to terminate these creatures.

If we do not complete this female's training, the enemy will gladly terminate billions of them. These six would be a small price to pay.

No. Unacceptable.

Options?

We should put the female into her rest cycle.

This would take energy we do not have. We must keep scanning the sentients outside. Keep the female still.

#

Through the crack in the rock Vicky heard a boat's motor, heard it stop, heard splashing, like feet in the surf, approaching close. This went quiet too and she heard the voice of one of the men as they pulled the smaller boat up onto the sand.

"Hey Deb, did I tell you this was a nice spot, or what?"

A woman's voice. "It's great, Frank. Jimmy, Andrea, you stay close, where I can see you, all right?"

Two children squealed happily.

Frank again. "I'll get some wood for the fire. Come on, kids!"

In her tight prison, Vicky tensed, tried to push against the thing. It reacted a bit, a tentacle wiggling across her bare belly, but that was all.

Oh, God, please .... she thought.

She heard them climb up outside, using the same route she had. She heard them moving around, breaking off branches, the children prattling on as they did. From the beach she heard the other man and the women talking.

"Beer?"

"Thanks, Bob."

"You know, it's like I was saying, Sid ought to take that Seattle posting. Sure, it rains, but it's good money ...."

They went on for a while; Frank and the kids returned. Bob cursed his lighter and they all laughed and Janet mentioned that she had brought some matches and starter fluid.

"Weren't you both boy scouts?" she chided.

They laughed.

A short time later the smell of steak wafted into the cave. Vicky could almost taste it, and she whimpered again, then tried to cry out, struggling again against the thing. But she heard nothing of her own voice, only the sounds outside.

The thing tightened its hold on her. She could feel it against her breasts, her belly, her hips and mons and buttocks, still clad in her panties, and tight against her thighs and calves. She moaned against the thing in her mouth, unable to even move her jaw, her tongue pressing against it, exploring its smooth surface.

Please help me .... Please ....

#

They were talking now. There was soda pop for Jimmy and Andrea, and beer for Frank and Deb and Bob and Janet. Bob and Janet were newlyweds, three months now, and they laughed happily together. Frank and Deb were older; Frank and Janet both worked for the same software firm.

Thick steak, grilled. Potato salad. Beer. Vicky heard the words, imagined them. She moaned and squirmed again. The thing was unyielding.

Time passed. Jimmy and Andrea ran up and down the beach and Bob and Frank chased them playfully. Then the men got tired and the kids asked for more soda, which was dutifully supplied.

More time. The adults talked. The kids played.

Vicky tried to doze, couldn't.

More time. The air passed in and out of her lungs. She pressed her tongue against the ball in her mouth, tried to cry out.

Nothing. No sound at all save the vibrations she could feel within her own body.

The thing caressed her now, from time to time, kept her limbs from falling asleep, squeezed her and pressed against her.

More time. Frank and Janet were talking office politics.

Vicky whimpered again.

And felt something bump against her thigh.

#

Not her thigh, actually. The surface of the thing that was covering her thigh.

She tensed. A soft cry of surprise escaped her lungs, muted by the ball in her mouth.

A child's voice then.

"Mommy! There's a hole up here!"

#

Vicky tensed again, trying to fight against the thing that held her. She tried to scream through the ball even as she felt another thing bump against her.

The kid -- it was Jimmy -- must be throwing rocks down through the hole. Another voice came, then, from further away.

Deb.

"Jimmy! What are you doing up there?"

Another pebble; Vicky heard it echo as it hit the floor of the chamber.

"It's a hole, Mommy! It's got a bush by it!"

A second, then another, maybe another. But in those few seconds, an eternity.

Please, Vicky thought, fighting against her bonds.

Please find me.

Please help me.

And then Deb's voice again.

"Jimmy, get down from there! What did we tell you about climbing up on the rocks alone?"

Another second. Another.

"But Mommy, there's a hole!"

Please .... Please find me ....

"JAMES EARL WATSON! I TOLD YOU TO GET DOWN FROM THERE!"

A last pebble, bouncing off her belly. Sounds of motion down the rock, sounds of Deb scolding. Nothing more from Jimmy.

More time. They sat around the campfire, chatting.

Jimmy and Andrea discovered some neat seashells nearby, showed them to their parents. Bob's hobby had once been marine biology and he identified them for the kids.

Please .... help me .... Please don't go ....

They left a little while later.

#

It was silent for a time; she knew the thing was making sure they were gone. Then, after an eternity, the ball in her mouth withdrew and it opened. Vicky gasped for air, moaned. She felt a tentacle come up, gently caress at her bare shoulder, but she pushed it away.

"Leave me alone!" she screamed. "Leave me alone!"

She crawled now, away from the thing. Light filtered in through the crack in the rock, but it was afternoon now and the light was fading slowly. She reached the far wall, sat and brought her legs up, turning her back to it. She could feel her breasts against her thighs as she held her legs there, as she began to sob, rocking back and forth. A few words, here and there, came out too, without thinking.

"I just want to go home .... I don't want to be done anymore ...."

It did not respond, only sat there, as it always had. Vicky sobbed some more, still rocking, naked save for her panties, alone. After a time it was dim, and she looked over at the thing.

"What do you want from me?" she asked. When it did not respond she turned, and on her hands and knees she screamed.

"Damn you! What do you want from me? I let you fuck me! I let you do anything you wanted! What do you want from me?"

Still nothing. Finally Vicky rushed forward and began hitting the thing, over and over with her small fists, screaming as she did, pounding and pounding and pounding in her frustration and her rage.

SIXTEEN

The four men sat in the physician's office. Each knew the data, had received it the night before. Now they discussed it.

It was easier to use their prey's language; the bodies were designed to communicate in this way, which was, though primitive and complex, effective, and this also made it far less likely they would be detected by the defenders of this world. The one who had been a physician, whose office this was and who still pretended to treat the ill of this settlement, was speaking.

"She has been armed, but the samples do not show anything unusual. Nothing to indicate offensive power."

"Yet she is one of them. The telemetry from the advance party, and our own, clearly show this."

"Obviously the weapons are latent. Something triggers them. Is there no useful data from the advance group before they were wiped out?"

"Only that the structure was filled with females, all heavily armed. There was something in the basement, also. The advance group was killed and the telemetry ended before they could tell us what it was."

The one who had been the father of the girl who waited outside spoke. "What they did provide us was useful, even in their deaths. There are ways to defend against these weapons. We must begin to experiment with these."

"You are in closest proximity to this girl," said the one in the mayor. "Have you felt any effect from this proximity?"

"Some. It is painful sometimes to be so close; there is no question but that she is well armed. I volunteer myself as a subject for experimental defenses. This is logical."

"Agreed. Proceed with this. But we must determine what triggers these weapons."

"I will conduct further tests," said the one whose prey had been a doctor. "Bring her in."

#

Nicole went warily this time, but there was little choice. There were four of them and she knew they were stronger than she was, and the police chief was in uniform and had his gun. She winced at the strength of her father's hand on her arm, rubbed it as he let her go. She looked at the examination table and shook her head.

"No .... Please ...."

There were stirrups there, like Dr. Lang had used for gynecological checkups. Nicole had never liked these, even with Dr. Lang, who was gentle and a woman. Nicole took a step back.

"This isn't right," she said. "Let me go."

Dr. Tanner faced her.

"Take off your skirt, and your panties, and get on the table."

"No!" she cried, pulling her arm away from her father. "I won't let you! Let me go!"

She almost made it to the door when the police chief caught her.

"Sedate her!" snapped the mayor. "Quickly!" She could hear fear in his voice.

The police chief pulled her to Dr. Tanner, who had a syringe in his hand. She felt him grab her arm and jab the needle into her shoulder, straight through her blouse, felt him shove down the plunger, felt the drug move into her body.

She struggled for a while, but grew weak. They held her arms as she fought them, and then there was nothing at all ....

#

She woke up on her bed. Her door was open, and she heard her father in the kitchen, smelled something cooking. Save for the pain of the massive bruise on her shoulder from the injection, she felt numb all over, and it was hard to move for a while.

When she did she made it to the bathroom, knelt before the toilet, and vomited.

She knew she had been touched, violated, down there. She could still feel it. She vomited again, heaving because there was nothing left in her stomach, gagging as she struggled to breathe. And then she began to sob, the stench of her vomit in the toilet fresh in her nostrils, her vision blurring from the tears, just sobbing again and again because it was all wrong, because it couldn't be her father who had let them do this to her, but it was.

She gagged again through the tears.

No no no no no no no ....

#

He was sitting in the living room when she emerged, just sitting. She looked at him for a moment, at the back of his head as he sat.

"I hate you," she said.

He chuckled, still staring straight ahead. "Really? Hate is a good thing, Nicole. Your father never learned that, and it made him weak. All of you are weak, because of your love. It will not help you, in the end."

It took a moment for his words to register.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

He said nothing.

#

Night fell at last, but Nicole could not sleep. She should run, she knew, get help, tell someone what they had done to her. Maybe Mrs. Phillips, across the street. But her head was still groggy from the drug and she felt weak all over. Her father paid little attention to her, that evening, save for one time when he stood at the open door of her room and looked down at her, then moved off.

She watched him as he did. And words came, in a whisper, from somewhere deep.

"You are not my father."

#

Darkness. Shadows in her room, thrown from the hall outside, through the open door, others cast through the window by moonlight. Lying in her back, arms out, staring up at the ceiling. Still in her blouse and dress, still smelling the stink of vomit in her nose and throat.

I want to die, she thought.

It wouldn't be hard, not at all. Just get up, go into the kitchen, take that long sharp knife you use to cut meat, slash your wrists with it. There will be some pain but it won't compare to what you are feeling now because of what they did to you. And then her blood would flow in rivers across the tiled floor and it would be over, and he would be alone, really alone, because Mommy had left him already and now she would be dead too.

Mommy ....

She is in heaven, they had told her. She is looking down on you right now and she loves you with all the love there is. And Jesus is with her, and he loves you too, and their love is unconditional, without restraint. No matter what happens, ever, they will always love you.

Nicole sobbed, eyes welling up again with tears. And she felt, throughout her body, in every cell, her anger and her hatred and her fear, felt them flow through her, consuming her, possessing her. Her tears flowed down the sides of her head and sank into her hair and her bedspread, and still she sobbed. Because she knew that the hate and the anger and the fear were a part of her now, that they would never really go away.

Please, Jesus, she prayed, help me.

She sobbed again, and again, for a very long time. And it was quiet in her room, in the house, in the neighborhood. There was motion, of course; a housecat, prowling for mice along a wall, the pilot light in the water heater of a home a mile away, burning quietly. These things and more. Nicole knew them, suddenly, all of them, because the world was suddenly there, marked in red lines, like a grid, showing all.

SEVENTEEN

They conferred.

It was the other sentients. They had an effect on the female.

Was training disrupted?

No. We can afford the loss of a single day.

Still, the disruption of her life is beginning to be significant. Remember that this is a social species and that we have isolated this female for some time. Insanity is a risk.

Options?

They considered this for some time.

Memory interference, as we did before.

Unethical. She is a sentient, and has a right to her mind.

They are social. Bring another female.

We lack the energy, or the time.

Communication.

The language is too primitive. At best we can send images.

Images. They thought about this.

#

Long overdue, the rage had helped; when at last Vicky had exhausted herself against the thing she had become aware of the chill in the cavern. For a while she stayed away from it, kept back against the far wall, but the chill became cold and she began to shiver uncontrollably.

Fine, she thought. I'll die.

But somewhere deep down she knew she wouldn't. That was too easy and she wasn't going to give in like that.

I am going to survive. I am going to see my family again.

So Vicky went, a little afraid even that it would reject her, let her suffer. But as she approached, still on her hands and knees, it opened for her and its warm embrace covered her quickly.

It felt familiar, good, and when her stomach growled she felt the tentacle against her lips and suckled at it until sleep came over her.

#

For the first time since she had arrived, Vicky remembered her dreams. She was flying, free. The sky was blue, but not as blue as she expected; there was an orange tinge to it, like a sunset all the time, and the sun above was redder than she expected. She reveled in the beauty of the place, in how she floated, how she could see the world below.

There. Something. Something that shone.

She descended to it, saw that it was a city. But not a city like she had ever seen. This one was crystalline, like spires of diamond jutting up into the lovely blue-orange sky, bridges of ruby crossing a park with walkways of emerald. And as she flew closer, as she dove and spun beneath the beautiful bridges and around the elegant spires, she saw people there, in the city, walking along the paths of emerald, the bridges of ruby.

They were singing.

They themselves were crystalline, at times nearly transparent. She saw that there were young and old, children with their parents, and their voices were the song as they spoke to one another.

This is our city. We have built it, and we are proud. We have created harmony with the world, with each other. We can sing, and create, at last. It has taken us eons, but we are here, and here is joy.

Welcome.

She flew close, felt their kindness, their love. It was for one another, and she sensed their history, sensed that they had not always been at peace with one another or with the world they lived in. This made their accomplishment all the more extraordinary, made her want to learn more. There was so much future here ....

Until they began to die.

It was slow, this death. One by one. It began with the elders, those who had built the beautiful city, but it moved slowly through all of them. They were no longer bright, no longer shone. She felt their suffering, all around their world, felt the pain of the children as they died, as they watched their parents die, and the parents held their children and sang a song of agony.

Why? she cried. Why?

Closer she flew. It was a different perspective now, coming in from outside, from beyond the world of the blue-orange sky. Hurried, closer now, down to the crystalline city, down to the last of them, huddled in the remains of what had once been.

Down, and inside them.

She saw.

White hot tendrils, burned into them, into what made them alive, into what made them think and love and sing. Feeding on them, enjoying their pain, their deaths. Pure hate, savoring slow death.

What is this? Vicky cried, suddenly afraid.

There was no answer.

#

Morning came and she rose, took her time of freedom to pace the beach. The dream remained, strong, like it wasn't a dream at all but a memory. Like they were real, those beautiful crystalline people, and this thing, this white-hot thing that emanated such hate, had killed them, taking their souls.

Finally she just sat beside the cold campfire, recently used now, and wept.

She was not nudged until later.

#

She dreamed again that night, exhausted from being done, nuzzling up against the tentacle and suckling. She wanted to dream about the crystalline people again, wanted to go to them in her dream, to hold their children and make it all right again.

But she did not dream of that world. Instead she dreamt of Evansfield, of the small campus. She dreamt of Williams Hall, of the thing in the basement. But the basement was empty save for the thing, the thing she remembered, the thing that had done her and the others all those months ago. And in her dream Vicky saw outside, to the police cars and the vans, and she saw men, dressed in black, with helmets and guns, moving up to the door.

Closer now, she moved. Into them.

And she saw.

White-hot, bleeding with hate. In their brains, their bodies. Tendrils.

Beneath the tendrils, Vicky felt the torment of the men whose bodies these were, the terror at what they were about to do. She followed them down, into the basement, the red dots of their laser sights playing off the walls.

A flash, then nothing more.

EIGHTEEN

Nicole wondered if she was dead. Maybe she had died, there, on her bed. Maybe this was what it was like, when you had no body, when you went into Jesus' arms, into the embrace of God.

Red lines, marking the universe, every element, every structure. You could see inside things, through things, could see what they really were. And as time passed Nicole found that she could focus the red lines, could control them.

She scanned her room, corner to corner, her things, her closet, her door. She scanned the hall, the living room, the kitchen, the garage. She scanned the new windows in the back of the house. And when this was done, when she had seen and knew every inch of the place, she focused on her father.

He was sleeping, though not well. She scanned through him, up and down, his heart, his lungs, his muscles, and his brain.

And something else, there.

It was unfamiliar, microscopic, white hot. Hungry. It permeated his brain, and Nicole suddenly felt pain there, from deep within him, and she recognized this.

It was him, her father. Praying.

Please, Jesus, make it stop. Please don't let it make me hurt her anymore. Please kill me and let her live. I can't take what it is doing to her anymore. Please, Jesus, forgive me for what it made me do .... Please let her forgive me ....

Nicole drew back, in the red grid. The thing, she sensed, was feeding on this, on his pain. She scanned through his nervous system, saw it embedded there, controlling everything, every action he could make.

She didn't know how she knew all this, or what this red grid was, but other things were suddenly clear.

#

Around the world, at lightspeed, the knowledge was spread among the armada of tiny ships.

The enemy are here.

The source of this information was unexpected; the weapons in this particular female were not active. It was not clear how she had accessed her targeting system without direction; the evidence from the female in training was that this took time and intense physical and emotional energy.

Yet this other female had accessed it, and was learning to control it, all without guidance.

How?

This is unclear.

Those on the small ships paid closer attention now, just watching. They saw as the female extended her range outward, as she identified the enemy in a number of other sentients in her settlement. It was an isolated place, far from the nearest city those on the small ships had been able to arm. The population was vulnerable, save for the female.

Is she in danger?

They looked, scanning her body through her weapons array.

There is evidence that cellular samples have been taken recently. There is also evidence of recent penetration of a variety of her orifices, including her reproductive system.

Doubtless they are examining her weapons system.

This was cause for alarm. The enhanced weapons were still not fully understood, despite the data they had gathered from the female in training. If the enemy learned to resist them ....

The female must be retrieved. Quickly.

Concur.

#

In a city not far away, a small silver disc, no larger than a quarter, rose from its place deep among the conduits and pipes of a water treatment plant. Keeping low at first, it flew outward, toward the mountains, rising above the treetops and high into the atmosphere as it picked up speed.

It was approaching its destination within an hour.

#

The thing in the mayor came aware instantly. Beside him, the man's wife stirred, looked over at him.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Nothing," he answered. "Go back to sleep."

She did, turning away.

He dressed quickly and without care, and moved downstairs, to the garage and his car. The thing inside him stirred as he drove, taking a moment to prod at that part that was the mayor, the actual mayor, and to enjoy the sensation as the man's soul cried out inwardly. He licked his lips, smiling, and pulled to the side of the road, shutting off the car's headlamps and waiting.

It had been a long time since he had felt the rush of battle.

#

The blast hit the tiny ship in a flash that blacked out radio and television for a dozen square miles. It was a directed energy, erupting outward from the tendrils inside the mayor, focused on the ship. It did not harm the ship itself; the material of the hull was far too strong to be so affected. But the ship had been feeding weapons into the water supply of the nearby city for months now, and its energy reserves were low, its shields inadequate. The blast penetrated, incinerating the small crew instantly.

The ship flew on, carried by momentum and its remaining power, before falling quietly to the earth a few hundred miles away.

NINETEEN

It took energy and focus to ensure the neural reaction. They had refined the liquid transmission base to increase its intensity, but they had long ago found that each female of this species was different; there was always some variability in their genitalia, and thus each required constant attention in how the transmission system was placed and operated.

Experience, of course, was the best guide, and with the female in training they had amassed a great deal of this. The glands on her chest were particularly sensitive to stimulation while her genitalia were being penetrated, and they had found that by seating her and squeezing the flesh there produced a particularly useful response, particularly with added stimulus to the points of the glands, which tended to become engorged.

The other positions were useful as well, of course. While on her back her glands were accessible and she was able to relax more of her body's musculature, not having the instinctive need to resist gravity. On her belly the more sensitive areas of her genitals were easily accessible, particularly the nub of flesh that was one of the triggers of the reaction. This position also allowed stimulation of the anal orifice, though they noted that the structure of the orifice itself was not designed for penetration, and so restricted themselves to a gentle, firm caress of the external tissues.

She was easy to direct now, assuming whatever position they prompted her to without resistance. Perhaps the visual messages had worked; perhaps she now understood what was at stake. There was the risk, however, that this cooperation was merely a sign that her personality had collapsed from the intensity of the training. Such a collapse would be catastrophic; if her sentience was gone, she would be of no use in the war to come.

They had her sitting now, her legs spread, and they were carefully directing the thick tendril into her reproductive system in rapid jabs, even as two more tendrils worked on the glands of her chest, which bounced a bit from the energy of the thrusting.

They injected more weapons into her, saw as the neural reaction occurred, rising and falling several times in quick succession. Even as this occurred, they watched as she guided the weapons, out beneath the ocean to a point of rock deep beneath the surface. They had selected a cluster of molecules there as a target, noted with satisfaction as they were burned into their component atoms.

Excellent. She has a good grasp of the system and how it works.

Select another target.

They did. The female squirmed, crying out again as they thrust the tentacle into her, as they squeezed tightly on her glands and then released, caressing the points in circular motions. Another injection of weapons followed, another intense series of neural responses.

Another direct hit.

Continue. If she has a success rate of more than ninety-five percent, we can conclude the training.

There is more she could learn.

No. We must use this female to extract the second female from the small settlement. Our power is too low to extract her without the help of this one. We must not allow the enemy to perfect a defense against our weapons.

A pause. They injected the female again. She squirmed, writhing helplessly against the bonds that held her, cried out as more neural reactions went through her body. The sensors recorded another hit, in a pebble on the mainland.

Very well. We must devise a way to get this female to the settlement of the second female. We lack the power to transport her ourselves. It will be difficult enough to get her to the mainland; take her to where she can find her own way back to her kind.

Concur.

#

Vicky slept, dreamless. A night like any other, wrapped in the thing, her naked body caressed by soft tentacles as she did, the cool feeling as the tendril pressed against her vulva. From time to time nuzzling the tentacle by her mouth, suckling at it, like an infant.

Sleep. Then morning.

Her eyes fluttered open. She was warm, comfortable. She pressed her lips against the feeding tentacle, took it into her mouth, was rewarded by a spurt of warm, sweet liquid. She swallowed, sucked again, fed. As she did she felt the tendril pull away from her vulva, then felt another thin tentacle move up between her thighs, felt it press into her vagina. She moaned softly as it moved deeply inside her and she felt as warm liquid flowed from it, all around her insides, felt the liquid spew out of her vagina and over her thighs, felt the things around her hips absorb it. It felt good; not sexual but clean. She felt other tendrils roaming over her, caressing, encouraging the flow of blood in her limbs, encouraging her to awaken. She continued to suckle as the tentacle worked inside her, then felt the thing withdraw from her. Her belly full, she stirred, reached over for her panties.

They were not there. Vicky hunted for them, turned.

Nothing.

It nudged her. She realized she needed to pee, to defecate. The thing opened and she rose, climbed out of the cave, went and performed her toilet. She wondered about the panties, why they had not been there.

Was it going to deny her even this, now?

In the distance, out across the ocean, she saw that clouds were gathering. It nudged her again, calling her back. She went.

It was open when she arrived. She blinked in the dim chamber, wondered why she had been denied her morning freedom.

No matter. She inhaled deeply, prepared to be taken.

But she was not.

Tentacles moved from behind the thing. Vicky watched as they pulled out her panties, her bra, her hose, her sandals and her dress, laid these on the rock before her. She stood, still watching, as they then produced her earrings, her necklace, her bracelet.

The tentacles drew back, as though waiting. She hesitated, watched.

It nudged her toward the clothing.

She stepped forward, unsure, took her panties and pulled them on, reached for her bra. It felt odd against her breasts, tight around her chest. She watched the thing as she reached for her pantyhose, hesitated.

What was this?

Another nudge. It wanted her to dress.

She did, save for the earrings. The piercings in her earlobes had closed so she just held the earrings in her hand as she stood.

All right, she thought. What now?

#

She went stiff, suddenly, felt herself walk forward, lie down in the thing. It closed over her, the thick ball pressing against her lips and then into her mouth, air flowing from it as darkness enveloped her and control of her body returned to her. A sudden fear gripped her, that it was taking her away, further away, that this was only the beginning and that she was never going to be free.

It's going to do you for the rest of your life.

Vicky tensed against the thing, but it was strong. She felt it move, across the floor of the chamber, then up the back wall to the hole at the top. Then it was down the rocks, across the beach, and she felt as it entered the ocean, felt it rise and fall with the waves. She whimpered, tried again to struggle, tried to fight. She felt as her earrings, still held in her palm, dug into the flesh of her hand. She was panicking now, screaming out, struggling.

And then something grazed against the surface of the thing, inches from her. Vicky felt it, the sensation transmitted through the thing, and she heard something, clicking and squeaking outside.

It sounded like dolphins, close by.

She calmed.

#

They stayed close the whole way, as hours passed and the thing rose and fell with the motion of the water. There was a song they were singing and this helped her stay calm; from time to time she felt one of them swim up against the thing, caress it with its belly, then swim away. She felt these caresses, enjoyed them.

Thank you, she wanted to say to them. Thank you.

They chirped and sang. She heard them leap from the water, speed past, return.

Then they faded in the distance and she felt the thing bump land, crawl up from the water. It went for a little way and then stopped.

The ball pulled free of her mouth and the thing opened.

#

It was dim, cloudy overhead. Vicky sat up, looked around. The thing had crawled up on a small stretch of rock; the ocean was a short way away, waves breaking with foam against the shore. On the other side were trees, just past the rock. She looked at these, felt the cool wind blowing off the ocean, felt the thing beneath her hand. A tentacle wiggled against her palm.

It nudged her up to her feet, nudged her forward, toward the trees. She looked back, saw it closing and moving slowly back toward the ocean.

It was letting her go?

It nudged her again. She saw it disappear into the surf.

But where am I?

She took a few steps, clumsy in the unfamiliar high heels of her sandals, then sat, looked out over the ocean.

What am I supposed to do?

A few moments passed. She was a bit afraid, sitting here. Her life had been so completely managed for so long that this sudden freedom was unfamiliar. She didn't know this place, didn't know where to go. Had it brought her here to let her die?

Another nudge came, again toward the trees. Vicky looked up that way, then down her legs to her feet.

There was no way she was going to get up those rocks in these heels. She reached down, took them off. Her pantyhose wouldn't last against the bare rock anyway, so she reached up under her dress and pulled them off too. She hooked the shoes together, tied the pantyhose to them, hooked her earrings on too.

Somewhere in the distance she heard thunder.

Vicky stood, smoothed her short dress down over her hips. Then she turned, started walking toward the trees. The rough ground did not bother her callused feet.

#

It grew dark as she walked and she knew she was lost. Rain began to fall, large drops falling from the trees, slowly soaking her hair and her clothes. She should stop, find shelter, wait for morning.

And she would have, save for the nudges.

They were insistent, almost urgent. There was a direction to them, too, and perhaps this meant the thing, wherever it was, knew where she should go.

Maybe that place would be warm and dry.

She kept going. After a time she found a road.

#

It was really just two tire ruts, largely overgrown with grass. But it was a road and she felt as the thing nudged her to the right, and she began to follow it. It was raining harder now and she had begun to shiver, her sandals and hose and earrings dangling from a single finger as she held her arms close to her chest to keep warm. She could barely see and stumbled several times, her feet covered with mud.

Then, up ahead, she saw light.

Noise, too. Cars moving. She picked up her pace, saw as a series of buildings emerged from the gloom and the trees. A fence blocked off the small road, the gate closed. It was just old wire and she passed through the gap in it easily. It was growing brighter now from the lights in front of one of the buildings, illuminating gasoline pumps, all empty now. Over this a large neon sign glowed in the falling rain.

STOP ‘N GULP

OPEN 24 HOURS

Vicky felt suddenly weak as her breath picked up. She hurried forward, under the metal overhang in front of the convenience store, stepped to the door. Then she stopped.

Taped to the glass just beside the door was a small poster.

HAVE YOU SEEN ME?

#

It was her high school senior picture. She had worn her best dress and they had done her hair the day before. She stood now, read her name, then the text below it.

VICKY THOMPSON

AGE: 20 HEIGHT: 5'6" WEIGHT: 125 lbs

BLONDE HAIR. BROWN EYES.

Vicky was last seen on the evening of May 27, wearing a black dress, black hose, and high heeled sandals. Her car was found near an isolated beach forty miles north of Evansfield, California. Her purse was found inside her car with her driver's license and cash, and there was no sign of a struggle. She is a student at Evansfield State College.

Please contact the Evansfield Police Department or the FBI if you have seen her.

A REWARD OF $10,000 IS BEING OFFERED FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO VICKY'S WHEREABOUTS.

It gave addresses, phone numbers, a web address for missing children. Vicky stared at the poster, at her face there, felt herself tremble with a sudden rush of emotion. She brought her arm up, her teeth clattering now from the cold, and wiped her nose with it, fighting to hold back the tears. It took a moment. Then she swallowed heavily, opened the door to the convenience store. The clerk looked up as she did, as she turned to the poster and pulled it off the glass.

"Hey!" he called. "What are you doing?"

Vicky stepped forward. Speech was suddenly unfamiliar and her jaw was still clattering from the cold. She mumbled something incoherent. The clerk watched her.

"Miss, are you all right?" he asked

Vicky set the poster on the counter. The clerk saw it, saw her.

Vicky tried to speak again, but it didn't matter now.

The police arrived quickly.

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