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Read Ebook: Collectivum by Lewis Mike
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Ebook has 312 lines and 9360 words, and 7 pages
"I'll take one," she breathed.
When the footsteps were almost upon them, Oren halted. There was no outcry; the Orenians had no need for vocal communication; their thought-exchange was bio-electromagnetic.
"Now!" howled Morgan, and launched himself at the enemy.
His hatchet cleft the face of the nearest foe, and he turned instantly to help the girl. A pair of bodies thrashed about on the ground. Then she stood up, and he heard her dry the knife on some grass. It was over in an instant.
"Not stung?"
"No."
"That was too easy," he said. "I don't like it."
"Why?"
"They don't ambush that easy unless they're in rapport with another group someplace close. We'll have some more of them after us if we don't get away."
They hurried about the unpleasant task of splitting open the once-human skulls to remove the legless parasite-entities that filled the bony hollows where brains belonged. The Oren creatures lived in their stolen homes long after the borrowed body died, and they could signal others to the vicinity. Morgan tossed the globular little creatures in the ditch where they lay squeaking faintly--helpless, once-removed from the body of the host who had long since ceased to exist as a human being.
"Let's go!" he grunted.
"Same way?"
"Yeah."
"Have to chance it. Too dangerous, hanging around the highways. Out here we can find places to hide."
They set off at a trot, chancing an ambush in reverse. But Morgan reasoned that the Orenians had been returning to the highway after a day's exploring on the side-roads. After plunging for half-an-hour through the darkness, the road began winding upward. The cypress archway parted, revealing star-scattered sky. They slowed to a walk.
"Can't we sit down to rest?" she panted.
"Can if you like. Alone."
She shuddered and caught at his arm. "I'll stick."
"Sorry," he murmured. "We can stop soon. But they'll be chasing along the road looking for us. I want to get into the spruce forest first."
She was silent for a time, then said; "With Earlich, it was the other way around."
"Earlich? The fat boy? What do you mean?"
"I always had to wait on him."
"Did you wait?"
"Until he ran out of bullets."
Morgan clucked in mock disapproval. But he was not in the least shocked. In the flight from Oren, it was devil take the hindmost. Weaklings, and people who paused for pity, had long since been stung. After several weeks of agony in which the brain became the nutrient fodder of the growing Oren embryo, they were lost in the single communal mind of Oren, dead as individuals. The adult parasite assumed the bodily directive-function of the brain. The creatures so afflicted became mere cells in a total social organism now constituting a large part of humanity.
They had penetrated several hundred yards into the spruce. A black hulk lay ahead in a small clearing.
"Yeah," Morgan grunted. "I'd hoped it'd still be there."
She nudged him hard. "Close-mouthed, aren't you?"
"If I told you it was here, and then it was gone--how would you feel?"
"You think about things like that?" She stared at him curiously in the faint moonlight. "Nobody else does. Not now."
"Come on," he growled. "Let's see if it's occupied."
The door was locked. Morgan chopped it open without ceremony. The cabin was vacant except for a corpse on the floor. The corpse was of ancient vintage and slightly mummified. He noticed that it had killed itself with a shotgun--possibly because of an Oren-sting. He caught up the scarce weapon lest the girl grab it and run. Then he dragged the corpse out by the foot and left it under an orange tree. The oranges were green, but he picked a few to stave off the pangs of hunger.
When he returned, Shera had found matches and a lamp. She sat at a table, counting twelve-gauge shells.
"How many?"
"Even dozen." She gazed greedily at the gun. "I won't steal it."
He pitched her an orange and propped the gun in the corner. "If you did, it would be a mistake."
Her eyes followed him about the room as he inspected the meagre, dust-laden furnishings.
"I like you, Morgan," she murmured suddenly.
"Like you liked fat-boy?"
"He was a pig."
"But you liked his gun."
"You'd do all right without a gun."
"So?"
"Why don't we team up?"
"Whoa! We may not be looking for the same things."
She shrugged and toyed with the shells while she stared thoughtfully into the lamplight. "What's there to look for? Besides escape from Oren."
"Nothing maybe."
"But you think so, huh?"
He straightened suddenly and waggled a pair of cans over his head for her to see--beans, and a tin of tobacco. He set them aside and continued searching the cupboards.
"But you think so, huh?" she repeated.
"Shut up and heat the beans."
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