Scott Nicholson - Forever never ends

"First the fungicide, then the TNT,” she said. “Maybe the explosion will spread the poison to the far reaches of the thing. It's trying to dig its way to the water table. If it gets there…”

"And didn't you say something about sunup?" Chester looked up through the inert trees. The night was losing its grip and the moon had fallen low and weak in the sky. Dawn pinked the top of Antler Ridge in the distance.

"Wire the TNT together, just a few sticks should be enough to set off the whole batch," Tamara said, pulling the sticks from her pocket and placing them on the ground before DeWalt. She had known nothing about explosives before, but now she at least had DeWalt's vague knowledge, thanks to her invasion of his mind.

As he worked with the wires, running the electrical fuse into the blasting cap, Tamara leaned against a boulder. She tried to block shu-shaaa out of her mind, but now she was picking up the entire collective, the parts of the whole that were screaming across the galaxy, crunching matter and sucking the juice from stars as they grazed their way back to the beginning of time.

She wondered if she was strong enough. She closed down and focused, shutting off the Gloomies, turning down the whine that jammed the frequencies of her mind. Then, she reached, not across light-years but miles. To Robert.

As her mind swept out, past DeWalt's concentration and Chester's rage and Emerland's fear, she found Robert. She tried to tell him everything would be okay, that she would be home soon. And maybe since she was temporarily telepathic, she might just dig through his psyche and see what was bothering him. Maybe she could take advantage of this brief gift and find out his true feelings.

If God gave you a gift, you were supposed to use it.

She reached, trying to get a connection, but something was cutting in, static or a stronger signal. Had shu-shaaa gained power from just that little burst of sunrise?

Then she realized it was Ginger, asleep but with a vibrant mind, a mental radar dish looking for information. And she sensed what Ginger was sensing, that two creatures, the bad people, were emerging from the forest behind the house. And Robert was…

She saw now through his eyes, tasted his acrid cigarette, smelled the dew on the grass, felt the rough grain of the porch rail under his elbows, the throbbing raw ache in the back of his hand where he had been tainted and infected.

She felt the strong urge that tugged him toward the forest, heard the strange voice that called him to go among those leaves and meet the things that would welcome him fully into the fold.

Tamara jolted Ginger, telling her to wake up and bring Daddy in, telling her to hurry hurry hurry because there wasn't much time and the orange daybreak jumped a little higher in the sky and the two creatures twitched with new hunger and they sensed Robert's bioenergy and hurry Ginger hurry.

The connection died, cutting off like a phone line in an electrical storm.

Because the Earth moved.

Nettie was floating floating floating heart of feathers in Bill's arms only his arms were skin, strange skin.

Why did she feel like she wanted to sleep but something wouldn't let her and why oh why was her throat so dry, had been ever since Ann Painter the Savior no the shu-shaaa had planted that kiss that drowned both body and soul — and what was that light? — oh, Bill, you better put me down because now I want to kiss you and then you'll be like us everything must be us and my mouth can't tell you to put me down and save yourself but how foolish it all was, once was blind but now I see, how easy it is to surrender when nothing matters except the feeding and growing and changing and the harvest and then the end of everything.

Only now, my love, you said open your heart so let me in let us all in I told you there was room for forgiving it's a big room let me open the door and oh the glory.

Yes, your breath is sweet and close and I'm sorry it has to end like this but I want to give.

I can't

I love you Bill shu-shaaa wants

But I can't your light and heat forgive me a time to embrace forgive me my trespasses and a time to refrain from embracing

I love you Bill

I love you shu-shaaa

I have sinned so I cannot save you

I love you too much, Bill to make you like me good-bye

She opened her eyes and Bill saw the green glow flickering in her retinas, something inside her trying to swell and explode. She twitched in his arms, tossed her frantic hands around his neck, drawing his head down for a final kiss. Bill yielded, helpless against the power she held over him.

Bill knew she was already gone, already infected, already like the monsters that milled outside the house. But still she lived, somehow, even without a heartbeat. And Bill couldn't resist her suddenly too-red mouth.

Many things sparkled in her eyes, things beyond his simple understanding, but all were beckoning and tempting. Their lips nearly touched, but at the last moment she stiffened and pushed him away.

Bill held Nettie against his chest as the warmth faded from her body. He pressed his face near her mouth, hoping to feel the vapor of her breathing. But all he felt was the mist of his own tears as her flesh wilted in his arms.

"Bill, come on!" Sarah was at the back door, looking through the peephole. "Those things… whatever they are, they're not back here."

"Nettie," he said to Sarah, softly. He was holding Nettie as if she were a rag doll whose threads were unraveling.

"We've got to go now, Bill," Sarah said, coming to him and tugging at his elbow. The preacher and his congregation still battered at the front door. Sarah glanced into the living room, then shut her eyes against her own remembered horrors. "My parents-I know how you feel. But we can't give up. You wouldn’t let me, and now I’m not going to let you. We've got to try to live… for them."

Bill looked at Sarah, then back down to Nettie.

"She's dead, Bill,” Sarah said. “I'm sorry, but that won't bring her back. She's with God now."

Bill wasn't so sure about that. Whatever those monsters had planted inside her, whatever they had done to her "Let's go," Bill said through gritted teeth.

Sarah threw open the door and they ran across the side yard, Bill carrying Nettie. He felt naked under the moonlight, exposed to God, raw. His truck was in the parking lot, its engine still running. Whatever the creatures were, their hands seemed too clumsy to use keys. He thanked the Lord for that small blessing.

Sirens flared down the narrow street and red lights strobed across the tops of trees. Bill slipped once and saw a fluid movement out of the corner of his eye, but he regained his footing and ran without looking back. They reached the truck just as a police car skidded to a stop beside the graveyard.

"You drive," Bill yelled at Sarah. He gently lifted Nettie into the truck seat as Sarah slid behind the steering wheel.

"Take her out of here," Bill said.

Arnie McFall, the town patrolman, jumped out of the police car and ran toward Bill. Sarah backed up the truck, throwing broken asphalt as the big tires spun. Bill watched until the truck was out of sight, then turned toward the graveyard.

Arnie had his gun out and was shining a spotlight at the figures wafting among the tombstones and the cemetery trees.

"What in the holy hell are they?" Arnie asked Bill, not knowing whether to shoot or jump back into his cruiser and speed away.

"Hell's people," Bill said, just before the ground rumbled and the grave markers toppled and the night fell in.

The alien absorbed the vibrations through its altered cells. The chaotic waves emanating from the approaching specimens disrupted its feeding, disturbed its healing, scattered its focus. It signaled the outlying roots and spore-infected units, commanding them to withdraw, centralizing its energy in the heart-brain.