Chapter #13Posssess Allison. by: Seuzz   It is probably dangerous to leave Chad on his own, but you decide to play for time. "What makes you think I would gamble on a thing like that?"
His eyes glitter. "Have you really forgotten, Sandra?" he asks. "I can't believe you have. But Anthony is pulling some weird blanks, too." He glances down at the deck and pulls out a couple of cards. "I bet Christine remembers. Maybe I'll ask her. Of course, maybe she'll be like you, and pretend it never happened." He holds up the cards: two aces and two kings.
You stare at them evenly. That is a level of detail that can't be explained away as coincidence.
Chad leans in. "I don't know what you are, or what exactly you did to me. But it was awesome."
And yet, though Chad's words surprise and even rattle you, you're not so frightened as to give up your intuition that it is still better to take Allison than Chad. So when Linda excuses herself and goes into the bathroom, you are ready. You slip around the counter, throw Josh's arms around Allison's torso, and deftly shoot a small worm up her nose. She is so unprepared she has no time to react before blackness overcomes her. A spasm passes through her body and she twists in your arms; then you pull your newest acquisition away from Josh. Her mind is only loosely open to you—you'll need to put her to sleep before you can thoroughly ransack it. You try to put something like personality into her blank face, but it's not really convincing. So rather than take a chance on exposing Linda to the change in her friend, you pick up Allison's book bag and send her tottering off to the college library, where you can give her into a quick nap without being disturbed. You then drop onto the couch and flip on the TV, planning to tell Linda that her friend got a sudden phone call and had to go.
A few blocks away, Chad is breathing heavily and the glint in his eye is looking decidedly queer. "If you are really Sandra, and not that ... thing ... then you're going to think I'm crazy," he says. "But I don't care. I'll gamble on it."
You don't reply.
"Whatever you are," he continues, "I bet you don't want the CIA or anybody like that knowing about you. But hell, I don't care what you're up to. All I know is that I want to be a part of it again. It was a rush." His eyes briefly unfocus, and look of ecstasy passes over his face. It's still there when he looks back down at you. "I know you used me to get at least some of my friends. That was the best part, when we were all together. But I don't know, maybe you abandoned me because I didn't fit in, or because you needed someone else. Like I said, I don't care. I'll still help you, even if it's just to help you get other people."
His nostrils are flaring, and he's backed your Sandra body back into a corner. "Chad, sweetheart," you say carefully. "I'll make you a deal." His eyes light up. "I'll pretend that you're not bat-shit crazy, if you just promise not to hurt me."
A dangerous flush passes over his face, and for a moment you fear that he is going to hit you. Then he blinks, raises his hands, and backs up. "Look, pax, okay? I sure wouldn't do anything to hurt—" He silently gestures at you. "As for you, well. Like I said, I'm sure you don't want the government finding out about you. But you have to give me something in return. I've just named my price."
You can't miss the tremble that passes through him; it's clear he's terrified of you, but is so ardent to be one of your hosts again—or at least to play your sidekick—that he's willing to run the risk of really pissing you off.
"Okay, I'm going to pretend that I know what you're talking about. But I want you to pretend that I don't. Tell me, in detail, what you are asking of me."
His eyes flick over your face, then he tilts his head deferentially; his teeth flash as he grins. "Okay," he sniggers.
He points at your face. "You've got something inside of you. It's squishy and squirmy, and when you kiss someone or sleep with them, little bits of it come out and go into them. And then you and that person ... become ... the same person. Oh, they can talk to each other. They can even argue with each other, like nothing has changed inside them. But it's really just one person, pretending like it's arguing with itself, pretending that everything is normal. And then they go out looking for more people to become."
You swallow. It's a natural enough reaction for an unpossessed Sandra to have, but it also reflects your own shock at how much Chad has remembered. It's as if you hadn't wiped his mind at all ...
"And you— You're saying you want this ... this squishy stuff ... inside you?"
A look of pain passes over his face. "I had it inside me. It was like ... Like being part of something very big. Very strong. It was inside me, but I was inside it, too. And the other people, I was inside them. We were all part of each other. It was like being on a team," he says softly, and closes his eyes. "But ... way more intense." His eyes snap open again. "I want it again. I want to be part of it again."
You grip the countertop behind you. In part, it's because you are so thunderstruck by Chad's confession. But mostly it's because you've just put Allison to sleep, and her memories are flooding into you. Including one of a conversation between her and one of her friends ...
You've never been in Allison before, and she has little direct acquaintance of the things she knows. But what she knows is enough: the disappearance of a guy named David Johnson near or on the military base; his sister, Mary Johnson, who is worried sick about him; the sudden hospitalization of their mutual friend, Kevin Tollefson. It's like a crack has opened in your own mind, but instead of knowledge flowing in from the outside, it has begun welling up from inside you. You are not an extraterrestrial, but an ordinary high school student who suffered a bizarre accident, confided in a close friend, and has been hopping from body to body trying to find a safe place.
This realization doesn't come all at once, but each remembered bit hits you so hard that your host bodies slip briefly from your control; the world vanishes from Josh's and Cindy's and Sandra's and Allison's eyes. It's like you're falling as you're remembering, and then you hit bottom, and everything swims into view again.
Josh and Cindy are still on her couch, eyes dazedly fixed on an afternoon talk show while Linda is chopping up some vegetables. Allison is still asleep with her head on a library desk. And Sandra ... Sandra is in Chad's brawny arms. You look up into his ecstatic face.
"No use pretending anymore, Sandra," he grins. "That's all the confirmation I think I need." Then he kisses you hungrily, searchingly, as though trying to eat the inside of your mouth. | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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