Posted by Menagerie on August 27, 2004 at 20:47:33:
ROAD FOOD
The first thing that registered on Jeanette, when she came to, was the light. It seemed to be shining right through her, illuminating her from inside. But it didn’t hurt her eyes; she stared right into it, felt its dull warmth. Geezus, she thought, that must’ve been one hell of a dose of acid.
Then came the second thing. She couldn’t move. She was laying on some sort of a hard, flat table, with a slight incline; the light was above her, shining directly on her. She tried to sit up, and nothing happened; tried to raise a shoulder, then a leg. She strained, but all she could do was catch a glimpse of herself from the bottom of her eyeballs; it looked like she was totally naked, but there was nothing holding her down. Her body simply was not functioning, and after a few moments, the dull horror of this bit of information started to sink in.
Jeanette frantically thought back. The last thing she’d seen, as she staggered along a dark asphalt road outside of George and Nancy’s house, trying to find her car, trying to find her keys, trying not to throw up—it had been a light. Very much like the one filling her whole body right this minute. Bright as the dickens, but it didn’t hurt. Warm, but no heat.
Headlights? That must have been it. A truck or something had run into her and left her paralyzed; she must be in the operating room right now, and they were trying to make her better. She tried to open her mouth, but again, nothing happened. Help me, she thought. Someone…please…
“Yes?”
Jeanette focused; a form had materialized between her and that pleasant, blinding light. It was just a dark blob at first; then, she could slowly make out the shape. Tall, hunched—must be one of those old country doctors, out there in the sticks where George and Nancy live. She still couldn’t move; the old country doctor’s colors began to fill in, then his textures. Green and yellow…scales…long, winding arms without joints…eyes the size of dinner plates...mandibles that stretched sideways a yard…
Jeanette could not give voice to her screams. Her limbs refused her commands that they sit her upright and get her the hell out of there; she just stared, transfixed, her eyes and mind racing over the incredible figure before her. And then she heard, clear as a bell, “Are you in need of assistance?”
But it wasn’t sound; she heard it in her head. The monster was impassively looming over her; its mandibles flexing slightly out and then in again, and its tentacles waggling a bit. The giant eyes seemed almost peaceful; there was nary a pupil in either one, but she could somehow tell that the creature was looking her over. And then she realized—the question, the solicitation of assistance, had come from the being before her. She tried to say, “Where am I?”; she couldn’t, but she didn’t need to. The answer came, filling each and every one of her senses.
“You are on…what you would call a ‘starship’. We come from—” there was a hash of pink noise in her head—“I do not know what your people call it; it is another planet, part of a system that is—” a quick pause—“you would say, three hundred and twenty light years from your own.”
Jeanette was still half-convinced that what she was seeing and—hearing?—was a really bad trip, but the voice-in-her-head droned on, “Yours is the forty-fifth planet on which we have found carbon-based life forms. We have finished our reconnaissance and are continuing on our mission; a subsequent mission will take more detailed measurements.”
Well, she was immobilized, mute and totally naked, receiving telepathic communications from something that looked like it came out of a crummy late-night sci-fi thriller on TV. If this was an acid trip, she had decided, it was the granddaddy of all time, and there was no way to fight it, so she’d go along with the gag. She looked at “it,” and thought, Why can’t I move? Have you taken me as a specimen?
The answer beamed quickly into her noggin. “No, no—this is a scout ship. We have neither the room nor the facilities to transport life forms—in fact, we’ve made special accommodations in this chamber just to provide for you. That’s why you are immobilized; the ship is maintaining your life essences. It has calculated precisely the electricity, the gases, and the nutrients needed to preserve you. This is necessary, for we have brought you along for sustenance.”
Now, Jeanette wasn’t really hearing “words” from the creature; it was transmitting whole thoughts to her. So she didn’t have to think about what it was telling her; it hit her harder than any truck on an asphalt highway. Surely, she thought in her panic, my eyes must be as wide as that thing’s. You’re going to eat me?
“Well, yes,” came the voiceless response, “but it will be a lengthy trip. It will take—” a different sound, high and low frequencies, calculations, Jeanette knew intuitively—“approximately four and one half of your years to arrive at our next destination. You will last until then.”
You’re going to eat me verrrry slowly, thought Jeanette, and it wasn’t a very comforting thought. She couldn’t do it, but had a mental image of herself, laying nude on the table, kicking and screaming and pounding her fists. The creature seemed taken aback; its tentacles kind of wavered in the air, and the images Jeanette was receiving from it turned purple and yellow, colors of angst.
“No, no,” came the response—Jeanette’s mind interpreted the thoughts as if they were words spoken with a soothing tone, like those of a country doctor (hah!); “there will be no pain. You will be nearly whole when we are done. Observe—we consume now.”
The creature—Jeanette had started to think of it as “Doc”—backed away from the table, and two more like it appeared on either side of it. The signals in her head told Jeanette, “We have measured you, minus your brain, at—” high and low pitches again—“one hundred and twenty-three pounds.” Well, she thought, I’ve been trying to lose a little weight. “We calculate that you will sustain us for twenty-seven of your days. This means that we will need to consume you approximately sixty-one times.” What the frig was this clown talking about?
Jeanette found out, a lot sooner than she would have liked. A whirring sound overhead caused her to raise her eyeballs upward; a bay was opening in the ceiling. From it descended a series of mechanical arms, each ending in a long, narrow, supple tendril; helpless, she felt one of the tendrils penetrate her, then another, and another, and—she lost count. They were buried in her, had passed through her skin with no pain, but she could feel the sensation of the alien things within her body, wriggling around, latching onto her insides. An acid trip, she kept forcing herself to think, I’m just high; those tendrils are probably George and Nancy’s hands, they’ve probably scooped me up from the side of the road…
And then, without sound, Jeanette gasped. For she could feel her—her self, being drawn into each of the tendrils, as if each were a little vacuum cleaner. She realized her substance was being drawn into the mechanical arms; frozen, she watched as three long, flexible pipes emerged from the ceiling, and Doc and its buddies each reached up, wrapped a tentacle around a tube, and inserted the tube into its face.
Jeanette was desperately trying to move, but again, could only shift her field of vision. What she saw filled her with terror; her body seemed to be imploding, collapsing upon itself. The muscle was going, the skin shrinking around bone; then, the bone itself—she saw her feet shrivel into lumps of flesh, small pink balls that got smaller and smaller. Her legs were flattening, like a couple of boards; her breasts—no! Not my tits!—deflated like empty sacks, and so did her chest. She was going away like a wax dummy under a heat lamp. I’m melting…I’m melting…
Doc, Dick and Duck—she had to call them something—were patiently slurping away. I’m going into them, she realized, and Doc confirmed it. “Our ship is converting you into foodstuffs which our bodies can utilize. Wasted nutrients are being stored; our own excretions—” well, of course they poop—“are likewise being broken down. The ship reduces organic matter to basic elemental blocks, and recombines them in a manner appropriate to our needs.”
Jeanette’s body was dissolving into nothingness, and this jerk was giving her a home ec lesson. But what about my body? she voicelessly shrieked at the goddamn thing. What will become of me? You’re eating me all up!
“Only temporarily,” it reassured her. (“This won’t hurt a bit!”) “Your brain will remain intact, and the ship has analyzed your—” translation, please—“DNA. It will rebuild your body momentarily.”
Jeanette had lost sight of what was left of her—her eyes must be gone, too, she decided. Her skull felt like it was sinking, then deteriorating; then gone. There was nothing left, her brain thought dully; I’m Doc Food. She received mental images; the Three Stooges had unhooked their pipes, they had finished eating her, and had pooped out what they did not need.
Then she heard a hum, and felt an incredible sensation. She was regenerating! Well, flesh was forming, anyway. The casing rewrapped around her brain and then hardened; ears sprouted, a nose protruded—her eyes were back; once the fog of rebirth cleared from them, she could see a long tongue of flesh extend itself from her head, then four appendages sprout from it. The long strands of peach colored putty lengthened, rounded—the bone was growing through her arms and legs; she could feel it. Her torso reinflated as if it was being pumped up, and two glorious mounds poofed up atop her chest. Say, fellas, she thought, can you make ‘em like Pamela Anderson’s?
The arms and legs had filled out, and her hands and feet were plumping out at the end. Jeanette could see her toes pop out—one—two—three—four—and this little piggy went—
Where was five? There are supposed to be five toes, she thought to Doc angrily, and then it hit her. “…nearly whole…”
“Yes,” came the apologetic message. “Between the stored inconsequential matter of your body and our own excretions, there will not be enough left after each feeding to rebuild you totally. Your body will gradually diminish; that is why you will only last until we reach our next destination. We will discard you at that time.”
And Jeanette thought about that, thought about being devoured by these three chumps time after time—sixty-one times after times—and each time, a little less of her being spit back out. Until there were no toes or fingers left, no arms or legs—not even boobies. And as the creatures slithered out of what was destined to be Jeanette’s chamber of horrors for four and one half years, Doc turned. His featureless, giant eyeballs trained on her, he sent her this parting thought:
“Pleasant dreams.”