nonagarret (nonagarret) wrote in horror_story, @ 2012-12-30 02:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | alternate universe, complete, gilman, holiday: christmas, nona |
Who: Gilman and Nona.
What: AU Prompt "Another Virgin Birth"
Rating/Warning: Gross, weird, schlocky stuff! Restraints, forced feeding, forced alien incubation, and a grisly end.
Setting: AU!Gilman is actually an alien looking to start an invasion of planet Earth. To start his invasion, however, he needs a host for his squiggly alien young, and Nona fits the bill.
Gilman had spent five years in Crow’s Landing, and two weeks before Christmas, he had finally chosen his host. She had good breeding -- for a human -- and from what he could see, she would suit his purposes perfectly. Young and resilient, and most importantly? She was going out of town, so nobody would miss her. Humans were so trusting, and it hadn’t been difficult to snatch her from the parking lot. He’d been quick and efficient, and he’d driven her car away and deep into the woods. Nobody would think to look for it until it was far, far too late, and then it wouldn’t matter.
He only needed two weeks, after all. Gilman had more than enough time to accomplish his goals.
When Nona woke up, the first thing she would notice was that it was dark. Not pitch black, but dark. There were a few streams of light coming in through what looked like boarded up windows. As she came out of what had felt like a very deep sleep, more became clear. She was in some run down old barn, or an abandoned shack, or something like that. It smelled musty, the wood rotting thanks to the structure being built in the swampy area outside of town, but she was sitting on something soft.
It was a Queen sized mattress, and she was secured to the wall, her back against it. Only her wrists were restrained, even with her head. Even though she could smell rotten wood, the restraints were securely fashioned. She was still dressed in what she’d intended to travel in, shoes included, but something felt off. And she must’ve been unconscious for quite awhile, because she felt an intense, gnawing hunger.
Finally, Gilman was sitting in a plastic lawn chair, watching her. He didn’t react when she woke up, studying her. There were a few brown paper bags that were spotted with grease, take-away from a local burger joint, sitting next to his feet. The smell was tantalizing, something to pick at her brain behind the obvious flare of panic.
“What the fuck?!”
Still in the haze, she pulled at the metal around her wrists. Again and again, the obvious frustration building like the bile congealed in her gut. All of it served as fuel to more panic. Nona shot her thoughts back to the last file they could recall; getting in the SUV, shutting the door... fastening her belt. Then nothing. Not even pain from a blow to the head or hands that grabbed her. Now she was here - whereever here was - and of all people Gilman Black staring at her like Hannibal freaking Lector.
Gilman continued to stare at her, unblinking and silent, for a few minutes too long. Finally he stirred, as though someone had slipped in and replaced his batteries, and he picked up one of the brown paper bags. He removed a burger wrapped in waxy paper, the paper itself glossy from the grease of the rest of the diner fare contained within.
“Hungry?” he asked her. He held it out to her even though she was in no position to reach for it. His face was still void of expression, his dark eyes intense and fixed onto hers.
“No I’m not fucking hungry!” she lied. “Let me the fuck go, Gilman - this is some serious shit you’re gonna be in!” Again her arms flexed and protested, harder this time but still to no advantage. She locked her eyes on his right back, but was unable to avoid the sudden death-crawl of chills trickling up her spine because of it. He was a creep, everybody knew that, but this was a new level of creepy you only saw in the movies and Law and Order. A fleeting thought in the back of her head prayed she was just dreaming, but the earthy musk of old wood and cold iron were way too vivid. So were the pangs that knotted her stomach, both fear and hunger. How long had she been out?!
“You’re lying,” Gilman said. His eyes glittered, but it wasn’t with malice. Something else. Something far more unsettling, but difficult to place. He glanced down at the burger -- there was some goopy faux-cheese starting to ooze out of it -- and then back at her, “And everyone thinks you’re out of town, Nona. You’re all mine.”
He swiped the escaping cheese off with a finger and then sucked the digit clean, not breaking eye contact. More chills turned Nona’s blood to frost, and she bent her knees in close with pricking instincts that demanded she get as far away from him as possible.
Not that it was very possible.
Her turn to be silent, though where his face lead to no particular emotion or thought, hers was a map of doubt and increasing fear. She could feel everything tighten in her gut, literally; that mixed with shortened breaths and a racing heart was bringing on the nausea. Nothing like a slow on-set panic attack when you’re chained to a barn, and his cold words rang with way too much fucking truth.
“What do you want?” she finally managed through the thick muck gathering in the back of her throat that made her words sticky and hoarse. They very easily conveyed her lack of confidence that the question would lead to a way out of this. Nona was sure, at that point, she was going to die here.
“I want you to eat,” Gilman said, “Will you?”
He raised both eyebrows just slightly, a small hint of an expression. Gilman had been on this stinking cesspool for too long, and he felt infected by all their little tics and mannerisms. When he spent time alone, he tried to maintain some semblance of self, but it was very, very hard. He’d been prepared for it, but nothing could have really wholly prepared him for living on a backwater garden world.
Gilman just had to remember how valuable the planet would be to his people. And his work, more or less, was done. A little malicious torture of his chosen surrogate wouldn’t hurt anything.
He reached into the sack and pulled out a large order of fries, “Maybe you want some fries, first. Before your burger.”
God, fries, and the seared steak and spices smell of the burger... they were practically singing at her, screaming through the gut-wrenching situation she’d found herself in, demanding that this insistent hunger was much more important. Nona stared at the food longer than she preferred, fighting bodily demand with logic. He’d had to have drugged her to get her here; who knows what could be in that food. But she was starving.
Nona wet her lips, not saying anything for what felt like forever. She wanted to cry, to scream out for the first person that could hear (if any could), but she wanted that burger more - and fuck how she hated herself for it.
“Let me out’a these things, and I will,” she finally said on a heavy breath, thinking herself smart.
“No,” Gilman said, “I’ll feed you, and if you’re good, then I’ll unlock one of the manacles.”
He smiled then. It was a cold and empty thing, his eyes glassy, nothing behind them.
“I’m not going to kill you,” he assured her. Gilman got up from his chair and crouched next to her, taking a wide path around, wary of being kicked. He probably should’ve secured her completely, but he wanted some cooperation from her. Just her wrists seemed like an adequate compromise, “I just want you to eat. I can see how hungry you are.”
He held a fry directly in front of her face, letting her smell it. The salty aroma coiled down through her senses and wrapped around her stomach like wire, but her reluctance to accept this ‘nicety’ from someone that’d bolted her to a wall was a little more than obvious. She let out a breath and closed her eyes without thinking. Suddenly the notion to bite his fingers off planted itself firmly in her brain, but it wasn’t an option right now. Doubtful she’d ever leave if she jumped that gun too fast.
So, with bile in the back of her throat, she gave in and took the morsel with her teeth.
As soon as she took the first fry, he offered her another almost immediately. The hunger would be gnawing now, but it would be devastating later.
“If you eat all the fries,” he said, his tone somewhere between monotone and a weird sing-song, “You get one hand free, and then you can eat your burger.”
And that was just to start with. After the first meal, it what was happening to her might become a bit more obvious, and he anticipated some... protest. So long as she continued to eat fries, he kept offering them. And no matter how many fries she ate or how full she started to feel, the hunger persisted like she hadn’t eaten a thing.
After at least fifteen fries with only a few left in the bag, far more than Nona usually ate from Vics, the increasingly corrosive emptiness in her stomach did start to throw a few more red flags up in the back of her head, enough to push through the instinct that told her to eat, eat EAT, if even a little bit. The gurgle/growl at her core wasn’t normal, and even as she wanted to keep eating, she started to think she’d get sick.
Or that she wanted to get sick, because something about this (besides the obvious) was wrong.
“Why are you doing this,” she said after the last fry, eyeing him with every scrap of distrust in the world. “If not to kill me.”
Gilman got up and grabbed the three now very greasy brown paper bags from his folding chair and returned to his crouch. If holding such an awkward position was bothering him, he wasn’t showing a hint of stiffness. He got the unwrapped cheeseburger out of the bag and set it on her thigh, and then produced a key.
He wagged it at her, not answering her question just yet, “Behave.”
There was a loud clunk and her left wrist was freed.
“You’re hungry,” he repeated, “A growing girl needs lots of nutrition.”
A very high pitched, reedy giggle erupted from Gilman, as though he’d just told the best (and creepiest) joke ever.
There were those chills again, only sharper, meaner than ever before. Nona stared at him, even as her free’d hand very unconsciously lifted the burger to her mouth. She’d taken two bites - big bites - before she realized what she was doing.
“The fuck did you do to me?” she hissed, all but forcing herself to put the burger down on the mattress at her hip to put a hand on her stomach. She swore she could feel it growling... churning.
Gilman got very close. He knew she could probably be surprisingly strong if she wanted to be, humans were adaptable creatures (if nothing else), but he wanted to be sure she heard him.
“In a way, I’ve given you something every human being on this planet longs for,” he said, “I’ve made you the most important person in the world.”
He picked up the burger from beside her thigh and leaned back, holding it in front of her face.
“You finish this entire first bag,” Gilman said, “And I’ll tell you more.”
That kind of phrase could be bittersweet without one hand being chained to a wall. This situation invoked nothing but a further fifty pounds to the lead weight forming around her spine. Deeper instincts than Nona could understand more than just follow were starting to switch on. Dread made tangible.
And yet even as all of it congealed as coherent thoughts, Nona had taken another two bites of the offered sandwich.
Like he had with the fries, (and there were more of those) so long as Nona ate, he offered. If she decided to take over again, he was happy to let her, and he allowed her left arm to remain unshackled. Gilman had every intention of keeping his word, though he would be impressed if she actually managed it. Her hunger, at this stage, would be outpacing the hard physical limits of her stomach.
And impressed Gilman was. She had managed every last fry, even the soggy, sad looking ones he’d rescued from the very bottom of the bag. He knew she had to be uncomfortable, having eaten more in one sitting than she probably did in a day. Maybe even two days, if they went by pure calorie count.
“It should happen soon,” he said. Gilman licked his lips a few too many times and shifted his weight back and forth, having not once left his crouch. The weird gleam in his eyes was a bit easier to place, now: Gilman Black was excited.
There was a more-audible-than-normal gurgling sound in Nona stomach (or somewhere in her abdomen, anyway), and there was a very slow but steady pressure. It wasn’t especially comfortable, and when the pressure ceased, the hem of her pants was digging uncomfortably into her stomach. While she had certainly eaten a lot, she wasn’t in a cartoon. Metabolism didn’t work that way.
“They’re growing,” Gilman said.
The hunger, somewhat sated a moment ago, returned full force. Every bite she’d taken, she regretted as much as she wanted, needed the next bite. Finally the steady stream of savory temptation briefly lapsed, she could actually concentrate on the pain building in her gut. Her hand covered the swelling bloat, lips peeling back as she tried to force it down like a bad bout of indigestion. But it didn’t work. It just got worse.
“Jesus,” she gritted. “What did you do to me?!”
“I told you before,” Gilman reminded her, “I made you the most important human on the planet. In two weeks time, you will birth the young, and our dominion of the planet will begin.”
It sounded completely ridiculous, like a bad B-Movie villain giving away his master plan. Gilman delivered the line completely dead-pan.
“They’re very hungry,” he told her, “And if you don’t feed them, they’ll just use what’s available. You. I’d rather avoid that sort of mess, Nona. It would be such a hassle to find another surrogate at this stage.”
A hassle, but not impossible. Gilman wondered if he should’ve shared so much -- oversharing was another aggravating human tic, one that his own host had in overabundance. Meanwhile Nona’s face had turned ghost-white. The words didn’t make sense on any rational level, but somewhere deep... where indigestion and over-fullness changed to a pain that was wholly different, she understood. It was a nightmare. It had to be. She was still sleeping off the Sudafed from last night, and any moment she’d wake up in the cocoon of white down comforter in her bed.
But she didn’t wake up. Not for hours. Not for days.
****
Nona learned very quickly that any plan she had for refusing to go along with Gilman’s - with whatever he was - wouldn’t work. If she stopped eating for more than an hour, despite the fact that her stomach lining had given out likely days ago, they would twist around her already mangled intestines and chip away at her ribs. Scraping her hollow. The barn had been thick with her screams until that energy wore out. When everything she took in went to the horde inside her, the horrific stretch of time left Nona starving to death, gaunt and frail save for the swollen abdomen of a heavily pregnant woman, unable to move more than the minimum.
Gilman had said that he wasn’t going to kill her. He hadn’t lied. And things were going exceptionally well -- he didn’t even bother keeping her in restraints. Where was she going to go? She couldn’t even move off the mattress, never mind manage to get the door open or get anywhere someone might find her. Now that she’d gotten them through their rapid growth phase, it was time for them to build up strength. The climate wasn’t ideal, so Gilman came in that day with a space heater in one hand, a kerosene lamp in the other. He needed to keep constant vigil, now, to make sure everything went according to plan.
Her skin looked like it was straining, at its maximum, but there was still a week to go, and it was already obvious that the offspring were starting their slow leech of her nutrients. The hunger was a thing of the past -- it was difficult to be hungry when there wasn’t anything left of your stomach but tatters.
By all rights she ought to be dead, of course, but the growing invaders secreted a potent cocktail that both kept her going and efficiently broke her down, keeping her alive as long as they needed. Her brain would be the absolute last -- they’d eat that after they emerged.
He didn’t speak to her as he set up the space heater, a long extension leading following it out the front door. There was a faint hum of a generator outside, but it wasn’t likely to attract attention. The things inside her twisted madly in Gilman’s presence and he laid a hand on the distended orb of flesh to settle them down.
“Patience,” he said, not even looking at Nona. She was nothing more than a borrowed womb to him, now. Certainly not a threat.
Silence from the girl on the mattress, not unlike it’d been for the last two days. There wasn’t enough room for the air in her lungs needed to scream, though the pain was still there. It’d been a constant and blinding, but whether it was the things inside or something else, somehow it’d melded to the background of her existence. It was all she knew now, thus becoming one with the fire. Adaptive. Like she kept hearing him mutter in the dark cold.
“Why are you doing this.” The words were shredded in her throat, dry and weak, but the dim light of intelligence caught the gleam from the lamp. “Why us.”
Gilman frowned when she spoke, and he set the lantern right next to the space heater, turning it up so they could see each other. The lighting made her look even more ghoulish than she already was, but it didn’t do Gilman any favours, either. Whatever was inhabiting Gilman couldn’t have chosen a stranger human. Or maybe that had been the entire point? He’d never had a good reputation in town. Given the situation, the people of Crow’s Landing might’ve preferred a sex offender on the lam over an alien.
“Because we can,” Gilman said, “And you’re not using all that water, anyway. Really, you’re a bit of a detriment to your own planet, so we’re doing it an ecological favour. I told you that you were the most important human on Earth. When the young finally emerge, you will have finally served a purpose greater than yourself.”
Her breathing was shallow, her hair dull and flat, a limp halo of pale gold around her head on the bare, now-soiled mattress. It shifted just a little, her head turning toward the light. Funny how you could come to terms with your imminent death. Hell, Nona had begged for it a few times not too long ago. But what’d kept her going between times when her body simply gave in to the dreamless sleep of exhaustion, was the big picture. The way impending tests and college applications haunted her at night before, now brewed the gnawing worry of what sounded like Armageddon. She was no example of great humanity, but perspectives tend to change when she was forced into this front-row seat.
“What makes your purpose greater than ours?” she ground out, every word sounding painful.
“And what purpose do you serve?” Gilman asked. There wasn’t anything malicious in his tone. He just didn’t see what her point was, “Purpose is completely besides the point. We want what you have here, and you’re a bit more advanced militarily than we could safely handle with a direct strike. This method is surprisingly effective on worlds like yours. Your capacity for denial and in-fighting is a fantastic advantage.”
He gestured to her.
“Even in your own, individual social life,” he said, “There were needlessly complex social rules to obey. What makes you more deserving of life than any other thing? One group more important than the other? We’re stronger than you, and so we’re going to do what we please.”
Gilman (or Gilman’s ‘people’) had a rather cold, uncompromising view of the universe. Nona didn’t react outwardly. It was doubtful she could do much besides blink anyway.
“You’re wrong,” she finally said. Or tried to say. “Everything that thinks that way eventually falls apart.” Or is torn apart by the next.
“I haven’t been wrong yet,” Gilman shrugged, “What would you know about it, anyway? You’re one of billions.”
Much as he prefered she save her strength, he didn’t usually have conversations with surrogates. She was unusually spunky.
One of billions. The phrase lingered in her head like the numbing torment she somehow continued to survive. It closed Nona’s eyes, though that might’ve been just as much exhaustion. It was too tiring to think of seeing any of her family again, her friends, or Ian again. Too late. Her focus, or what she could muster of it, remained entirely on him.
“How can you ever...” she said but paused for breath mid-sentence, her eyes still closed. “-ever know... what one in a billion really knows...”
Gilman frowned and didn’t answer. Much as he wanted to, he didn’t have a way to respond to what she said. After all... how could he?
***
It was very late on Christmas Eve, nearly Christmas Day, and Gilman was on pins and needles. While her progress was as he expected it to be, the young were taking their time. They should’ve emerged hours ago, but they seemed intent on scraping every last bit they could. That, or they just weren’t keen to come out when it was so cold outside. She had gone from looking heavily pregnant to something obscene, her skin translucent in places, the writhing cords of the mature young occasionally squirming into view.
They should’ve been born by now, and Gilman was getting impatient. What if something was wrong? What if it was her fault, somehow? She’d remained uncomfortably cognizant throughout the process. Not unheard of, but extremely rare. And he had never personally encountered it before. Gilman didn’t care for her probing questions, not from an inferior creature he was using like a biological cloning lab.
He had decided it was the cold and left her alone. Steadily, he’d added a rather dangerous array of heaters, not all of them electric, but the chill of winter had an easy time seeping in through the rotten wood and the uninsulated walls.
Gilman returned with something he’d ended up having to steal. It didn’t matter, because it would be over soon, and the poor idiots at the trailer park would have more pressing troubles than warmth soon enough.
It was a propane heater, not especially safe in an enclosed area, but perhaps this, finally, would coax the young out. He set it up with a deep scowl, occasionally shooting Nona dirty looks, like somehow all of this was her fault.
She didn’t seem to respond, just like she hadn’t spoken or even returned looks in the last three days. Nona’s body was beyond broken at this point, her spine caved by the weight and movement of the things that’d half-eaten or displaced her internal organs. She breathed slow and shallow, rarely opening her eyes. They caught the gleam of the nearby lamp when the vibrations of Gilma’s footsteps neared. She felt the vague sensation of added heat, and focused in on it.
“Another heater...” her voice was almost non-existent now, tight and weak.
“They’re being stubborn,” Gilman groused, “Not fond of the cold.”
He shot her a look and felt stupid for thinking she was somehow willing them to stay put, but really, could he put it past her? He was so close to shedding his weak human shell and fulfilling his true purpose, but not yet. He needed his dexterous little human fingers to make sure everything was running perfectly.
This particular brood was not one he would miss when his work was done.
Gilman tried to find a better spot for it and ended up moving one of the kerosene lanterns out of the way, closer to her, close enough that she could feel the heat of it. The entire place smelled like ozone and kerosene, more so by the hour, and Gilman started to fiddle with his stolen heater, his back to Nona.
“I don’t blame them,” he muttered to himself. He should’ve thought about this, but it didn’t matter. So long as he did his job, a bit of sloppiness on his part would hardly matter.
Nona watched the yellow flicker of the flame inside that lamp, sucking at it’s potent fuel, trapped in it’s little glass globe. Her fingers twitched toward it, like moths seeking the heat. It was the first time she’d tried to move anything more than to breathe in two days, and the spined and coiled things inside her shifted too. Like the little flame, they flickered to brighter life when given more fuel. Spoiled rich girl she may have been at one time, often accused of being less than average in the smarts department, at least she’d figured that part out early on.
It hurt, spikes of now familiar agony chasing themselves throughout her body, clamping her teeth and screwing her eyes shut, but she didn’t let herself cry. They seemed to feed on that too.
“Maybe they know something you don’t,” Nona finally rasped once the wave settled enough to put air in her lungs. She opened her eyes again, and fixed them on him.
Gilman looked over his shoulder at her, first the blasphemous flesh that was scouring her of vitality, and then, for once, her face.
“I doubt that,” he frowned, “They’re barely sentient at this stage. They have to feed for awhile before they’re fully cognizant.”
Not that that information was any use to her, but he wasn’t in the mood to hear sass at the present.
“Maybe not,” she conceded. If there’d been more voice in the statement, the mocking edge might’ve been more clear. But it wasn’t so much important that he heard it. Nona knew it was there; one of the few comforts she had left. Especially since the added heat seemed to do the trick he’d been hoping for. The globe of her abdomen coiled and shifted toward the warmth; teeth or tentacles - god knew which - scraped and clawed at the thinning, strained barrier and wrung a garbled yell from her compressed lungs. Then another...
Gilman exhaled a sigh of relief when it finally started happening. All his worrying was for nothing; a basic matter of heat had solved the problem, like he’d originally thought. Once he’d overseen their ‘birth’, he could take his own true form and start bringing them townsfolk. They would feast until morning, and their maturation would be complete.
It was just past midnight. Christmas Day. He crouched right next to her, and then, unable to help himself, lowered his head to be even with hers.
“Now all your billions don’t matter,” he gloated, “They’ll be slurry for me and my kind to gorge on as we please.”
She could feel them tearing her apart, shredding the membrane of bone and tissue to stretch at their freedom. Already the thinnest bits of skin began to rip, red and black in the gold light of one-too-many aging heaters. Nona bit screams back with her teeth, finding her arms useless to reach the enormity that’d become her lower body. Her instinctive flailing to stop herself from being dismembered riled the carnivorous creatures further; a vicious cycle that would not end with her.
That’s when it struck; an epiphany through pain and impending death that hit when her arm found the grimey coat and shoulder hanging from Gilman’s ‘borrowed’ frame. His words echoed in her head as they had for fourteen days of torture; you’re the most important person in the world...
With strength ironed by agony and the very last reserves she had left, Nona twisted her hand in Gilman’s shirt, hard and fast to make detangling from her as difficult as possible. She was going for impossible. Her other hand stretched and flailed out for that remembered kerosene lantern. Tendrils of horrible life within her pythoned around anything - joints, organs, ribs - she lost her screams in the pain, but not that one resolved focus. Her fingertips dusted the lamp’s handle and anchored on, then slammed it down on the barn floor with every scrap of strength she had to give.
He was so caught up in watching the offspring thrash themselves free, he almost didn’t register her hand. Almost. Gilman snapped his head to the side to look at her, expression contorted in confusion and annoyance. Oh, what now--!
His eyes widened. The last thing Nona saw, aside from Gilman’s body contorting as he (or it) attempted to escape, was fear.
The explosion went in stages, but with so many appliances running, surrounding a nearly-full tank of propane, it was mostly one big, loud bang, followed by a smaller one when fiery debris fell on the generator just outside the smoldering crater that had once harbored dark, terrible things that would’ve ruined a lot of Christmases.
Though nothing remained of her and her fate to be discovered in that smoking hole, Nona Garret had indeed become the most important person on Earth. She’d saved Christmas. She’d saved the whole world.