Anatomy of an Invasion Ch. 10

It was not one person this time, but it was many. It was everybody.

She heard screams from the barn, but also close, as if she were among them, and she realised that she had begun to scream, herself. Each and every one of them was a lost soul, screaming in terror, feeling the burning of their flesh, the searing of their lungs, the death of hope as the fire consumed the barn, and its human contents, from within.

Those trapped held each other in terror, but there was nothing to do except face death.

It seemed to go on for hours. She felt every sensation, every emotion, of every single one of those poor people trapped inside the barn, raw and unbearable, but then fading.

One by one, each slipped away, first into unconsciousness, and then into death.

There was no mercy.

It had been a massacre.

He wouldn't have killed his people like this.

They wouldn't have killed their people like this.

It was murder. That's what it was.

Murder.

Why wasn't she dead? Why hadn't she died with her companions? Why was she still alive?

***

Anjolie felt as if she were drifting, alone, in darkness, floating in a vast emptiness. She had been that poor girl, she had been that poor, misguided, innocent girl, and now she had to fight to regain her sense of self, to return to consciousness, to open her eyes.

The blonde looked down at Anjolie, kindly, and spoke softly.

"She was saved because she was Australian, Anjolie. She was allowed to come back to Australia. She has been watched every single day since she returned, but now she is safe.

"Those memories will haunt her every waking moment. Remember, Anjolie, remember the faceless evil that kills countless innocents to prevent change. Evil men will do anything to preserve themselves, Anjolie, and will not hesitate to kill, and to burn, and to bury, and will keep killing as long as it takes, just so that they can stay in charge, just so that they can control every one of us.

"Life means change, Anjolie.

"The only way to save Earth from the evils of war, and plague, and famine, and neglect, and hatred, is to embrace change.

"We can do it, Anjolie. We can save the world. Help us, Anjolie, and your life will soon be full of love, and children, and friends, and pleasure."

Anjolie was still feeling the sense of hopelessness that had permeated that poor soul as she witnessed the massacre, that orgy of death.

She was not able to even contemplate a quiet life after being a part of that.

"We can't leave you like this, Anjolie." the blonde whispered to her.

Anjolie felt a lump of something cool and moist being pushed into her lower back, around the base of her her spine.

When she felt her head begin to spin, she knew it was venom.

It must have been a lot.

Anjolie welcomed the pain, it was a distraction, but as it dissipated Anjolie became limp on the bed. The next stage had started, and, is it claimed her, she lay back, marvelling in horror at the sensations which assailed her.

She couldn't resist opening her legs, her pulsing pussy feeling painfully sensitive, and wanting to be filled, filled with anything.

She kept her arms rigidly at her sides, and breathed quickly, willing herself into stillness, and willing that quaking pleasure outside of herself.

The two women began to strip her then, quickly, and efficiently, and they had soon removed every item of clothing from her frame.

Anjolie was powerless to stop them, and all of her energy was expended in halting her growing sexual arousal. Every time her skin was touched by one of her assailants, she felt an electric shock of pleasure, and they knew of what they were doing.

It was only when she was totally naked, and they latched on to her nipples, and began to suckle from her, that she lost control completely.

She made a keening sound as her first orgasm claimed her.

It was powerful.

She felt something moist and smooth being pressed against her opening.

She began to panic.

The blonde was pushing something into her, Anjolie couldn't see, and her body opened itself up as it slid in easily.

Anjolie felt a wash of physical relief flow over her.

She had something to fill herself with now, something to satisfy the powerful urges engendered by the venom.

She opened her legs wider as the blonde began to gently pump it, and she even smiled at the pair who were raping her, encouraging them to press into her a little harder, to move faster, to bring her to completion.

The pleasure was purely physical, but the sense of calm which pervaded her mind was not.

She wanted to feel the sting, she wanted to feel the pleasure, she wanted to give herself to a master.

The sting did not come, but the pleasure kept building.

She wailed as she came that second time, and looked upwards to the heavens.

The twins moved close, and she held them both in a hug, one on either side.

She felt free as a bird, soaring to the heights of sexual abandon she had always denied herself.

There were no feelings of guilt, or recriminations, or fear, or anger.

But the horrors of the past were with her now, and made this celebration of life and liberty bitter-sweet.

When the blonde moved close, Anjolie took her lips, and kissed her, and loved the soft, sweet tongue which entered her mouth.

Tears of joy, and of horror, and of wonder ran down her cheeks, and remained on her back, staring at the ceiling. The blonde lay her head across Anjolie's chest, and the redhead on her stomach, and Anjolie gently patted and stroked them both with her hands.

They lay like that for quite some time, and Anjolie again felt the soft touch of all of the ideas which had passed through her head during the twins' strange visit.

The two women gently raised themselves off the bed, and the redhead kissed Anjolie on the forehead, and pulled up the blankets to tuck her in.

"We shall leave you now, Anjolie.

"Think upon what we have said.

"Sleep now, Anjolie, sleep ..."

A warm, comfortable feeling crept up her spine. When it reached her neck, her face prickled, her eyes closed, and she fell into a deep sleep.

***

When Anjolie awoke, she was alone in the apartment.

Sunlight streamed into her room through that huge picture window.

She still felt filled.

When she reached down, she felt something sticking out of her pussy, and she felt around it with her fingertips.

It had a lump on the end.

She grabbed it with her fingers, and gently pulled it out.

She looked at it in fascination.

It was a green jelly dildo, still slick with her lubrication.

She had never seen one before. She knew that if she had seen such a thing yesterday, she would have thrown it away from herself in horror and revulsion.

Today, she regarded it with pleasure, and ringed it with finger and thumb to measure its girth.

She smiled at the erotic possibilities.

She had changed.

Somehow, she had been changed.

She enjoyed a few moments of peace before the horrors shown to her the night before returned to her, the memories of death and pain crowding into her head.

The memory stick.

She looked over to see it sticking out of her computer.

She knew what it represented.

A surge of nausea rushed from her stomach into her craw, and she began to salivate.

She had no choice but to jump out of bed and rush into her bathroom.

Grabbing the toilet seat, she leaned over and heaved, purging the remains of last night's dinner from her body, and it splashed heavily into the bowl.

Several times more her stomach contracted, expelling whatever remained, and even when it was empty she continued to heave, only to spit foul-tasting bile into the chemically fragrant water.

Her face had reddened with her body's effort to rid herself of her sickness.

But Anjolie knew that the sickness was not of her body, but of her mind.

What had she been contemplating?

How would she allow that to happen to her own people?

And herself, a doctor?

Shakily, she stood up. Her eyes were teary and red. She rinsed out her mouth, cleaned her teeth, and washed her face and hands in cold water.

She took the horrible thing away.

She threw it in the microwave, slammed the door shut, and turned it up to high.

Two minutes ought to do it, she thought, as the memory stick began to spark and crackle.

She couldn't go back to India right now.

Anjolie knew then that the lives of millions of women were hanging by a delicate thread, and if she were not circumspect, that thread could snap, plunging the world into a holocaust of unimaginable proportions.

The knowledge felt heavy upon her shoulders.

But I am lonely, oh, so lonely ...

She knew some other Indians in Canberra, and she had played tennis with them, and met up for the occasional meal. But they knew nothing of the worms, and were only interested in finding a career, finding a husband, making a start in life. These concerns seemed so shallow to Anjolie now.

She wanted, she wanted so very much, just to go to the hospital, to give herself up, to give herself to the worms. Her time with the twins was frightening, at first, but so very intimate. She felt closer to the twins now than she did to her own husband.

But she knew that this was selfish.

She owed him so much. When this was all over, she vowed to give him the closeness that he desired, to love him, to give herself to him totally. She had finally realised that this was the only way to have a meaningful relationship.

One must commit oneself utterly.

But she had work to do, and people to heal, and the world to save.

Somehow.

She didn't know how, but she'd think of something, as she always had.

She could at least start to make a few real friends.

Maybe she'd ring Julie, and ask her out for lunch.

It was a start.

Julie was the only one that Anjolie thought that she could still trust.

At least Julie was still human.

***

Cassie woke in the morning, feeling physically tired, but mentally refreshed.

Three of the worms had detached themselves in the night, and she still had a worm on the back of her neck.

She still felt like herself, although she had not felt this well, or this contented, since she was a child.

Sheyda and Maryanne were in bed with her, and gazed at her, and she felt their loving admiration as if it were her own.

Sheyda spoke.

"Cassie, I must go. My master will be leaving me soon. Thank you for coming to visit me."

The worms of the three women joined their communications tendrils, and Cassie kissed and suckled at her companions, enjoying again that stream of physical pleasure.

Jane interrupted them as she appeared at the end of their bed, with a gown for Sheyda.

"I'm sorry, Sheyda, but your time is now. Come with me, and you will be ready to rejoin your family very soon."

Sheyda blew them both a kiss, and put on the robe. The black tendrils drew themselves up into her body.

Jane handed Cassie her clothes, discarded last night in the cancer ward, and left, her arm around Sheyda's waist.

Cassie's clothes had had been freshly laundered, and smelled nice.

Breakfast was brought in for the hosts and herself, but Cassie did not talk. The task ahead had begun to flow through her mind.

After a shower and a change, she took the lift down a floor, to visit the infected women again.

She visited each woman in that room in turn, and asked them many questions.

One by one, each woman's master would relinquish control, and Cassie would talk to the unencumbered woman of the future, of her family, of her goals in life, of her earliest memories. She badgered them, and insulted them, and encouraged them, and flirted with them.

The women were often teary at the loss of their master, but each one really did try her best to assert her usual personality.

Sometimes Cassie tried to make friends.

Sometimes Cassie tried to make them love her.

Sometimes Cassie tried to make them hate her.

In the end, Cassie got under the skin of every one of them, and began to know them.

It was a skill that she had, she'd had it all of her life, and it had set many people against her before she had learned to use it with care.

She had too much personal integrity to use it all the time.

She had always kept some distance from Julie, as her relationship with Julie had seemed too sacred for such blatant manipulation.

Perhaps my life would have been simpler if I had got inside Julie's head early on, Cassie noted to herself dispassionately, but I was probably too scared at what I was going to find ...

With each woman, she noted all of her responses, and was alert for signs of oddness, or off-ness, of the uncanny valley of a human being that had been touched by an alien intelligence.

After each interview, Cassie would lie down with the woman, and they would hold each other.

Cassie could see the evidence of the woman's master taking control of her once again, as the woman smiled, and gave herself up as she returned to the pleasure of a servitude well rewarded.

Tendrils would emerge, and their worms would communicate.

Cassie could gaze into her subject's eyes, and feel as if in love as their masters kept them in a state of pleasurable fascination. Tendrils of thought were drawn from her as the worms pored through her personal analysis of each woman's tell-tale residue of infection.

Cassie's critical eye gave the worms a means to train their charges, how to control a woman into a taught conformity, how to leave her in a state in which she could exist, undetected, amongst other, clean, humans.

Cassie was in her element.

She worked twelve hours straight, but the work was invigorating, and she revelled in the knowledge that she had gained when so many women had given her access to their souls, to their innermost secrets, to their very sense of self.

She returned to the hosts at dinnertime.

There were three plates laid out, and some wine, and the food looked hot and delicious.

For the first time, she was able to talk to all of them.

Two were hosts, and two were milk.

There was Maryanne, whom she had already met, and Tania, the other host, and Margaret and Eileen, the milk, the women who fed the hosts.

They had been the first patients of this clinic, and all had been terminal, with inoperable cancers.

None of them officially existed any more.

Each of them had been selected as someone who could leave the outside world with minimal consequences.

Just like me, Cassie thought, without rancour.

The worms liked milk-fed flesh, and took a lot of blood from Maryanne and Tania so that the young ones could grow quickly.

Maryanne and Tania needed a lot of calories, and fed from Margaret, and Eileen, and also from the other infected women who regularly came to visit.

Cassie was lactating, too, and always enjoyed the feeling of intimacy when she fed the hosts. It was a pure pleasure, feeling the suckling, knowing that one's body was providing enjoyable sustenance to such a beautiful, gentle woman, and all of the masters she carried within herself.

The hosts came to the dinner table, but did not eat.

All were obviously very happy, and talked of the many women who had visited them in the past before being cured and sent home.

The worms shared the minds of the infected women with the hosts, and everyone present had become a student of human nature in one way or another.

After dinner, Cassie joined the hosts and the milk on their bed, and enjoyed a torrent of pleasure as the worm on her neck communicated with the others.