Chapter Twelve

CHAPTER TWELVE

NANCY MANES CURSED the day she'd ever met Anderson Scott.

He was so superior, but there was something wrong with him, too. That was obviously the reason they'd been attracted to each other. Like calls to like. There was a flattened aspect to Anderson's empathy, just as there was one for her.

She was better at hiding it now. She'd been to therapy for her antisocial tendencies, and all therapy had done was teach her what people didn't want to hear. She pretended to be prosocial, then, and she pretended to care.

But with Anderson, it had been a bit too seductive.

He'd been so honest with her, it had made her wonder. Could she be honest with him, too? Could she show him every single awful aspect of herself?

She didn't think anything about herself was particularly that awful, to be honest. She knew that if she didn't hide certain things, however, there would be consequences. And while she didn't think that other people had any real capacity to weigh in on her own worth—because she knew she was different than them, superior, really—they treated her in ways that made her life difficult.

So, she pretended to care about what people thought of her.

In some ways, she even did. But not because it mattered , you understand, simply because it was better to follow the rules. Playing the game was the only way to win the game.

And she'd been playing so well until Anderson Scott had crashed into her life and they'd started a love affair that had made her question everything. Here he was, and he wasn't playing by the rules. He was breaking them and getting rewarded for it.

She wanted it, what he had.

She should have realized it was because he was a man.

And she should have realized that—being a man—he'd be ruthless with her in the way men were with women.

At first, maybe they were equals in his mind, she couldn't be sure.

She didn't think either of them were capable of thinking that another person was actually superior to themselves. She certainly couldn't, and she was pretty certain he had some kind of god-complex. But she thought, for a time, they admired each other as equals.

And then he knocked her up.

And she became property, immediately.

Inferior.

Not even human, really, which wasn't saying much because neither of them placed much value on humans, anyway.

Certainly no longer an equal.

And he was worried, now, about what she'd do to his offspring.

"Our kid needs an actually loving mother, don't you think?" he would say.

"And a loving father," she'd say.

"Sure," he said noncommittally. "But a mother's the most important thing."

She tried to get rid of the baby; he didn't like that. He was pretty sure that the combination of them was going to be incredible, but he said that they couldn't leave it to chance. "The baby needs to be really loved," he said.

So, she was locked up. She was forced to give birth. The baby was taken. He did it all through legal channels. He had her declared unfit.

She knew she could have fought it. She could have gotten to a news outlet and told a journalist. He'd have fought back, but she could see it working. A pro bono case with a lawyer looking to make a splashy name for herself, and she could have had custody. But… it was weird. The baby, she sort of… cared in a strange way.

Anderson had the baby with a couple who were raising her, and the baby was happy. Anderson sent pictures and life events. She got a little update each day on her phone, and she did everything he asked of her—pathetically—just for that, for those moments, seeing her daughter playing and watching videos of her laughing and talking. She lived for it.

In the end, Anderson had her by the throat.

She knew, even though she was enamored by her daughter, that she wouldn't be doing nearly as good of a job at raising her as this couple was doing. She didn't even want to, really. The little girl was fascinating and delightful, but mostly because she was Nancy's, a sort of extension of herself in a way. The day-to-day elements of motherhood, she likely would botch them.

It was better this way.

She didn't know what Anderson would do if he found out the extent of how much things had gone to shit out here. He didn't know, because she hadn't told him.

She wasn't even entirely sure why at this point. Maybe he'd be angry? Maybe he'd stop sending the updates about their daughter? Maybe he'd hire some team to come bomb this little settlement right off the map?

She wouldn't put anything past Anderson, not in the end.

Her thoughts were interrupted, however, because someone was banging on her door.

She thought about yelling for whoever it was to go away, but she doubted they would. So, sighing, she got up and opened the door.

What she saw there was too awful to be real.

She tried to shut the door on it, close it away.

But they thrust their limbs in the way of the closing door, and they made their way in.

She recognized them now.

Lieutenant Harris, Roger Lee, Peter Mann, Nathan Robinson.

But they weren't them anymore.

They all uttered strange, keening cries from their altered throats and they reached for her with webbed fingers.

She tried to fight them off.

She tried as hard as she could.

LUTHER THOMPSON WAS pretty sure it was not his job to investigate strange noises in the middle of the night. Hell, whatever his job was, it was done at this point. He didn't have a job anymore. They were all just trying to survive now, right?

But it sounded like someone was screaming.

So, he left his cabin.

He went to check on Angela Ramirez first.

She opened the door, though, dressed. "You hear it, too?" she said.

"I can't just pull a pillow over my ear and go to sleep if someone's getting hurt," he said.

"Yeah," she said, as if she wasn't pleased about it. She reached inside and came out with a gun. "I swear to God, Thompson, if you make me regret giving this to you—"

"I'll give it back afterwards," he said with a nod, checking to see it was loaded and then tucking it into an empty holster on his belt. He was still wearing his uniform. Seemed weird not to wear it.

She eyed him and then gave him a nod. "You're different than they are."

He shook his head. "I'm not."

She gazed at him for a few more moments and then nodded again. "Fine. Have it your way. You're just like them."

He sighed.

"Sounds like it's coming from that way." She pointed.

"Nancy," he said with a grimace.

"You want to back out?" She raised her eyebrows. "You can say yes. I'll let you keep the gun."

He shook his head. "Nah. Not at all." He took the lead, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Ramirez was following him.

When they got to Nancy's cabin, the door was open.

It smelled… it smelled wrong in there, a kind of brackish musky smell that reminded him of the ocean but also… like blood.

He called inside, "Nancy? It's Ramirez and Thompson."

Something stirred within. A noise came out of the darkness, a kind of odd groan. It didn't sound human.

"Nancy?" he called again.

"We're coming in," said Ramirez and pushed past him, brandishing her gun. She disappeared into the darkness and he had no choice but to follow her.

Immediately, something burst out of the shadows. It was like that lizardthing, except… it wasn't.

It was scaled and it had webbed hands, but its face, it was…

Oh, fuck, it was Nathan.

Nathan ran at them. He had been wearing pants at some point, but they'd been ripped at the crotch and now—

What the fuck was—

Nathan hissed at him and tackled him against the ground. Sharp claws buried themselves into Luther's midsection.

No, Nathan was clawing him. Nathan had him pinned down and was digging into his skin.

Nathan shrieked in his face.

That… that wasn't Nathan anymore.

Luther let out a whimper.

A gunshot.

Nathan's body slumped on top of his.

Ramirez had shot him.

He shook. Then he pushed his former friend and co-worker off of his body and got to trembling feet. He cast one glance down at whatever it was between Nathan's legs, but it was shrunken now, not the strange sort of long protuberance he'd seen before.

Reproductory changes, that was what the scientists had said.

Shit.

Ramirez nudged him with her shoulder. "You're wounded. Go out and wait for me."

"No fucking way," he said fiercely. He was bleeding, but he wasn't leaving her alone. "I'm not letting you face this alone."

"Thanks, Thompson," she said dryly.

"Not because you're a woman," he said. "Just… no one should be alone right now."

They edged their way further into the cabin.

Ramirez turned the lights on and that was when they saw Nancy.

She was lying half in her bedroom, half out of it, right in the doorway. Her pants had been ripped off, and her legs were spread. There were things… oozing out of her, um… between her legs. Lots of round, squishy things with these blue spiderweb-like veins inside them… like…

Her stomach was split open. There was blood. The things— eggs —were oozing out of the rupture in her stomach too. There were bloody hand prints all over her thighs. She'd been—

"Fuck," he said.

He backed away, shaking his head, shaking his entire body.

"Fine, I'll check for a pulse," said Ramirez.

He bowed his head, still shaking. "Sorry, I just—"

"No," she said. "You're wounded."

His mind was racing, putting things together, things he didn't want to put together, things that he didn't want to know.

"You shoot me, right?" he said. "If I… once I turn into—"

"Yeah," she said in a clipped voice. "Of course."

"Thanks," he said, and then he went out of the cabin and threw up.

Ramirez appeared in the doorway as he was wiping at his mouth. "Dead," she said.

"Yeah," he said.