Arcturus Syndrome Ch. 05

Author's Note: This is a work of fiction. Some locations reference real-world places, but in purely fictionalized form: imagination supplemented by Google Maps. All characters are over the age of 18. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is completely coincidental.

The Story so Far: A strange disease has taken hold in the small town of Philipsburg PA, possibly after a meteor strike. Government scientists, part of the "Wildfire Project" are working with military and other governmental agencies to contain the disease and understand it. Meanwhile the town itself has been devestated. The disease seems to drive mature adults to engage in sexual activities. Upon culmination, most people die nearly instantly, grown over with mysterious salt crystals. Some characters in this chapter include: Carl Newman, a criminal on the run who thinks he has a solution to the insta-death, and has survived his first encounter. Melissa, a strongly religious girl, recently graduated from high school, who is leading the rescue effort for all the children of the town. Dr. Emily McKinnon, head of the Wildfire program.

>>> Noonish, West of Philipsburg, PA

Carl Newman was feeling pretty damn good right up until the moment he ran the car into a bog. Which was right when the dull thud of a helicopter started getting louder. Which was right when a fighter jet buzzed about thirty feet overhead with a blast of wind that shook the SUV like an earthquake, and sank it considerably deeper into the bog.

Suddenly it didn't look like he was going to be rejoining maintained roads in this car, if at all.

The thing was, he was feeling really good. Better than he had felt in years, actually.

The headaches gone, the thirst manageable. He just needed to take a leak once an hour. But more than that, he felt strong, energetic, sharp. He remembered what it felt like to be eighteen. Alert, ready, balanced. Ready. Carl felt good.

And he was damned if he was going to let himself get caught up in this situation.

No matter how things ended in Philipsburg, Carl was pretty sure they weren't going to end well for him. He had come West Nowhere PA specifically to avoid running into federal parties who might or might not be looking for him, and if the feds didn't end up having some kind of "tragic accident" that cleared away whatever craziness was going on, there was definitely going to be the kind of reckoning where his recently-minted identity documents weren't going to bear scrutiny.

Of course, running didn't look good either, and they seemed to be adequately competent at finding.

But, with this unexpected flush of health, Carl considered himself ready to rise to the occasion. He was nothing if not the master of an improvisational backup plan.

It was a job to make a hole and crawl to the back of the SUV where he could exit the vehicle without going knee-deep into bog-muck. But this he did, and then he packed his light-frame backpack with energy drinks and the densest of his salty snacks.

He carefully shut the hatch, and made his way for the nearest trees.

When he turned off the road, he had seen a lone house on a hillside off to the left, and he began making his way in that direction now, finding the animal tracks that made navigating the undergrowth a little quicker, but keeping under the densest canopy. He was pleased to observe he was right about the helicopter, too. It tracked to where he'd left the car. Which meant... they had eyes on the place.

But all was not lost! He had been in central PA long enough to recognize the signs of a storm brewing, and today had all the signs. Hot, humid, and clouds stacking in the east.

It took him nearly an hour, but he came out on the dirt road that, by his reckoning, would lead him to or near the house he saw. Fingers crossed it was an empty vacation rental, and not guarded by hillbillies with AR-15's. These hills, it could go either way.

He kept off the road, tracking it uphill, going slower than he wanted, as the terrain was rough and uncooperative.

When he finally saw the house, it had the bad luck to be across the road, and surrounded by a good thirty feet of yard. It also had a sparkling clean red Mazda pulled up to it. Not a hillbilly car.

Nothing risked, nothing gained.

He could have waited for cloud cover, but he felt too good about things right now to wait.

The sunlight stung his skin in a pleasant way as he crossed to the house, and then he was up on the porch. The door was locked. He rang the bell, why not?

He gave it five slow breaths, and a second ring. Then five more slow breaths. He was just about to knock out a pane of glass when the door opened.

A pretty blond stood in the doorway. No AR-15, but a handgun pointed straight at his head in a grip that told him she knew what she was doing.

"Turn around, walk away, and we'll forget we ever saw each other," she said.

"My kind of gal," he answered, not turning away.

"I got the call, I know what I'm supposed to do, and I'm not doing it. You, however, are not the government, checking up on me. I do that math, I think, you are someone I don't want on my property, and I'm ready to use lethal force to protect myself. Shall I count down from, say, five?"

He held up his hands. It worked last time. "I come in peace," he said. "I'm not going to the high school either, and frankly, I'm glad to see someone who's not dead. Thought we could help each other out."

"You thought very, very wrong. Five."

"Look, I don't need anything from you, I'm fine leaving..."

"Four."

She had straight blond hair that made him think Scandinavian. She also had the kind of curves any straight, red-blooded man would kill for. She was not wearing a bra, full breasts pressing against a sheer blouse, nipples prominent.

"... But I thought maybe you would want to get out of here, too."

"Three," she said. Not blinking, not wavering.

Carl noted that her cheeks were pink, a flush on her neck.

"Cause, lady: I'm a survivor. Most guys aren't, as you know."

"Two."

"Is it on one, then, or the beat after one? You going to shoot between the eyes, or maybe just go for the thigh?"

"One."

Carl tensed, watching her finger.

Things went in slow motion. The muzzle of the gun lifted just a smidge, and her finger squeezed. Carl dropped to the boards of the porch. The sharp report of the gun was shocking, and the echoes had an odd flatness to them.

He looked up at her, grinning. "Can you give me another five count, and do it right this time?"

She pointed the gun near him and squeezed off a second shot. He felt a punch of pressure on his side, but no pain. He checked, there was a slice through his shirt.

"Damn, woman, you're good."

"I can be better if you don't start walking. I don't want to kill you, but I will."

"Ok, ok, I believe it now! Just do me one thing, feel that flush that's in you now, that adrenaline, right? Feel that thrill, that excitement, and then tell me to leave. You know I will. I think you know why."

"Huh? I don't know what you are talking about."

"Do it, and I'm gone."

She looked at him like he was a worm, and said: "Leave. Now."

Carl felt it. He felt that compulsion. It had been weird when the woman at the store had done it to him. But everything was weird now. He had a sense about this woman, this woman with a gun, and now he knew he had been right.

He got up, dusted himself off, and turned away.

"Wait!" the woman spoke sharply.

Carl paused, tilted his shoulders to look at her. The flush had deepend.

"Come inside," she said.

Carl turned, bounced up the steps, feeling that life in him, feeling that heavy thickening in his cock, that tightening in his belly.

Inside was sparse, designer decorated, big windows looking out onto the yard and the forest sloping down hill, the valley beyond.

"Sit," she said, waving at the sofa. "Let me get you some water."

He waved her off, and pulled out a some salty trail mix bars and a couple of energy drinks.

She cocked her head at him.

He offered her some. "It's good for ya, good for this."

Now in the cool of her house, he felt the stirring inside him intensify. That strength and youth flushed through him, but it was as if he was seeing through a haze. His brain seemed to buzz.

"I guess you should know my name," she said, unbuttoning her blouse. "Since you're going to die. I'm Ruth."

"You don't look like a Ruth," he said.

She shrugged, the silk flowing to the floor, her heavy breasts free. Pale pink aureoles, small, hard nipples.

"And I'm not going to die," he said.

She smiled sadly. "You don't know, then?"

"Better than you, Ruth."

"Take off those clothes," she said. And the haze darkened. Carl undressed, as Ruth pulled off her jeans."

"Mmmm," she hummed, "now that's a cock."

"Better than your husband?"

"Not my husband, my boss. My ex-boss. He's upstairs. Don't worry, he won't be listening in."

Carl grinned at her. "Well, come try this one out, I think you're gonna like it."

Ruth had a trim, sharp V of fur. Her labia were pink, swollen, glinting with wetness.

She walked up to him, stepped onto the sofa, and brought her pussy to his face. "Go on, get to work," she said.

Carl chuckled. "You're a piece of work, lady."

The scent of her took him over, and he brought his lips and breath close, without touching. He released a long, warm breath to flow over her. She hissed her excitement.

"Lick it," she commanded, and he did... as lightly as he could, grazing the surface of her skin with his tongue.

She could have thrust her hips at him and pinned him to the sofa, but she didn't. She moaned, and her legs trembled a little.

Carl slid his hands up her calves, along her smooth thighs, over her gracefully broad hips, and reached to hold her butt. He pulled her closer, deepening the press of his lips to her labia.

He felt her hips starting to move, to reach for him.

He pulled her harder, pressing his tongue in to swirl the flat of it over her hard little clit. He alternated slow swirls between the flat and point of his tongue, finding which stirred her more, but each seemed to work on her.

Her taste intoxicated him. He had never savored anything so delicious. He paused to lick her thighs, her hips. Salty!

He dipped his tongue back in and began to really focus on the circles, swirls, and spirals, pulling her against him, dipping his tongue into the dark, deep nectar, spreading it around.

It wasn't long before her sounds escalated, her breath heaved. Her fingers gripped his skull through his short hair, and she let out a long, quavering moan. He felt the climax rumble through her, and came to stillness, letting the flat of his tongue hold her as the orgasm crashed, rippled, subsided.

She stepped back off the sofa.

"Ok," she said. "You pass."

He looked down at his cock, big, thick, heavy veins latticing up the shaft. The cock he had always dreamed of.

"I'm not sure I want to do what comes next," she said. The flush had subsided, perspiration glistened on her skin.

"Hang on," Carl said. "Let's try something."

He held her by the hips, and started licking her belly. The salty taste was strange, intense, not usual.

"You do the same," he said. "Lick my sweat."

She made a noise indicating she thought he was disturbed, but she did so all the same.

"Damn, that's intense," she said after a few licks.

"Here," he said. "Take powerade, too. Orange or Blue?"

She reached for the orange. "I don't trust the blue," she said. "It looks like antifreeze."

He took the blue for himself.

"My theory is, it's the salt," he said. "Or electrolytes, or something. I think they may be the same?"

She licked around his nipple, drawing a gasp from him.

"We got some kind of weird virus or something. Something that drives us mad with lust, and then for some reason leaches the salt out of us. I mean, you've seen what the dead ones look like, right?"

She nodded, licking down his abs.

"So we gotta keep replenishing. If we don't? Headaches, nausea. And if you drink water, plain water, it's worse."

He added: "Load up on salt whenever you can, keep the reserves high."

She said: "It got Henry as soon as he drank water."

Carl moaned: her breath whispered over his cock. All his senses were on highest alert, and highly charged shivers that ran through his body.

"Oh do you like that?" She touched her lips very lightly to the most sensitive skin of his glans, not rubbing, licking, or sucking - just a light touch, resting on his flesh.

Carl lost his words.

"Always a good way to get a man to shut up," she said, and finally, after a long teasing pause, took him into her mouth.

She kissed him and licked him slowly, intensely, teasingly. He let her know how good he felt.

She wrapped one hand around him, at the root, squeezing, very gently moving the outer skin over the hard flesh of his cock. With her other hand, she took his balls in her hand, and very gently massaged him.

Carl felt himself stretching, thickening to the absolute limits of his size, and still when his cock pulsed in her hands, it seemed to momentarily get thicker still, like flexing a muscle.

She moaned around the head of his cock.

"I want that in my pussy. Now."

She climbed up, held him in her hand, and swirled him around her pussy, flicking the head of his cock over her clit, sliding him around the valley between her labia, before pressing him to her entrance.

He felt that hot slippery welcome, he lifted his hips to spear into her, but she giggled, road his motion, keeping him right there, like a gentle, persistent kiss.

"You like that?" she teased.

It was too much for him. He grabbed her waist, and held her firmly while he pressed through the initial resistance of her tight pussy.

"Oh my god," she said, "That is sooo good."

Carl watched his cock disappear into her. The sensation of her sliding down around him flooded him with pleasure, with power. Feeling her buried to the hilt, her own moan long and low, grinding her clit against the base of his cock, Carl roared the strength of his sensations, his raging desire. He swung her around, bringing her to her back on the sofa, pinning her hands above her head, and slowly, surely drilled into her, taking his time with each long stroke. Her legs clutched at him, kicking at his thighs. She ran her hands into his hair, pulling him down.

When he pressed her hard into the sofa, feeling himself bottom out in her pussy, the stretched around the thick root of him, their hips pressed together, their bellies, her breasts soft and flat against his chest... he held that moment. His turn to take a breath of stillness.

He wanted to tell her: "I'm going to fuck you hard now," but his brain couldn't find words. The buzz, the electricity, the haze around him consumed him.

But he did.

He slowly began to pick up the pace, pressing, swirling his hips, sliding in across her cervix, and out to the lightest touch. Her grip when she tried to squeeze him in became a delicious barrier that he pressed through again and again, gradually building the pace until he was steadily plunging into her, through her, driving his pleasure to the peak.

The sounds she made, the way she thrashed. Was that an ongoing orgasm? Her eyes rolled back, her head flipping from side to side...

His pleasure reached the tipping point. He felt that sudden shift in the world as his climax triggered.

He rode those rapids with a few more plunges before digging himself into her as far as he could. He held her there, completely pinned to the sofa as he flooded into her. He felt each contraction jet into her as she bucked, cried out, twitched beneath him, around him.

As the orgasm subsided, his vision seemed to clear. He felt that luminous power, but also the insane thirst possessing him.

Instead of collapsing onto her, as was his first instinct, he grabbed another drink, and sucked it down. Sweat dripped down his body, and glistened on Ruth as well. He lapped at her, sucking at her salty skin.

She was still stretched out, floating in her bliss.

"Quick," he said, and handed her another of his bottles. "Drink up."

She made a dry sound with her mouth and nodded, accepting the drink.

>>> State College, PA, 13:11

Dr. Kettleman had been the last to arrive. Tall, big boned, scruffy from his back-country vacationing, he had intense gray eyes. McKinnon wondered what made some eyes more intense than others, but Kettleman had a way of looking at things that suggested he was really looking, really seeing, penetrating - not just receiving the visual field.

"Just in time, Jeffrey," she said, leading him from the quad-turned-helicopter-pad to the makeshift command center. Military men in green camo let them in. Power and network cables tangled around the perimeter, with one side devoted to military and comms operations, and the other side set aside for the scientists.

"No wifi," McKinnon said. "Military insists on archaic tech, but don't worry, we have adapters for every laptop."

"I don't have a laptop."

McKinnon laughed, "What? You weren't hiking with your laptop? Don't worry, we have all the tech you'll need."

He shrugged and McKinnon wondered if he even owned a computer.

"Ok, everyone!" McKinnon raised her voice, calling the room together. "We are all here. Thank you all for your flexibility. You all have access to all the data; we are adding to a common repository, organized by raw data, processed data, interpretation, and hypothesis. We have virtual whiteboards for all ideas, crazy or otherwise. Any thought that occurs to you, put on the whiteboard so everyone can see it. Don't keep anything to yourself."

She then summarized their understanding so far, in moderate detail, concluding:

"The most salient characteristics are the post-mortem crystallization, and the total loss of impulse control, especially with regard to sexual desire. Needless to say, we have never seen an infection with these characteristics. But I want to emphasize that we are not currently concerned with origin. The wildfire team is assembled specifically in response to potential extra-terrestrial organic contact, but we have a national, and possibly global security threat here. Our first priority is to stop it. We will figure out whether this is an actual extraterrestrial event or some new horror from our own planet at a later date."

She went on: "I have all your equipment requests prioritized. Most is either here already or on its way...

"But the exciting moment today is about to unfold. We have drones and two retrieval robots at the motel where our initial recovery team met their fate. In the raw data section, by the way, we have literally hundreds of hours of additional drone footage - our friends in HomeSec have video documentation of the town. We have 527 survivors in the gym, these are all under the age of about 19 or 20. We have only 26 known survivors outside the gym, with 1733 confirmed corpses and about 700 more suspected. That is a mortality rate of over 99% for people over the age of 20."

"I have the feeds ready, Doctor," the operation manager for the recovery operation said.

"Put it all on screen, please."

Drone footage came up showing the small, one-story motel. There were several angles on it, all showing two chunky devices near the end of the motel. One looked like a small Mars rover, the other was a quadruped bristling with equipment.

The two main screens showed cameras from the robots themselves: point-of-view feeds crisp in detail..

"Please begin the procedure, Lieutenant." And to her scientists: "Hopefully you briefed yourselves on the capabilities of these devices. If you have anything you want them to sample or analyze, please just instruct Lieutenant Commander Brask here."