Part 28 (1/2)

As the lead medic knelt by me, I attempted to speak and tell him I was in no pain. I could not lift my head, yet I still was under the delusion that I would be able to communicate. I was wrong. What issued from my mouth was a gelatinous baritone belch, accompanied by a horrible stench.

I think I was as shocked as the medic.Certainly his face revealed his disgust. ”What the h.e.l.l is this?” he asked angrily.

Shaw stepped up and stared at me with consternation. He cleared his throat and, after a few false starts, he managed to say,”Until a few minutes ago, he was our co-worker, Mr. David Thompson. This is his desk. He was sitting there working quite normally before whatever . . . happened . . . began . . . er . . . happening.”

”Are you telling me this is a human being?” asked the medic.

”Yes, as far as I know,” said Shaw.

Had I been able to control my movements, I would have embraced him then and there. I was filled with grat.i.tude. I tried to lift my arms and found that it did set the worms into motion. The pink protrubances seemed to leap up from the floor like writhing tentacles, but I had no control.

The medic jumped back, a look of fear on his face. Shaw and everyone else backed further away as well.

I tried again to speak, but this time all I managed was a noisy exhalation of noxious gases.

I then discovered that it was very difficult to get a breath. It was as if some giant was sitting on my chest. I gasped.

The medic approached again. Tentatively, he reached out to me, trying to take my wrist, but I really no longer had one. He stopped that movement, and then placed a stethoscope on my chest. He face relaxed a little when he heard my heart beat.

”What happened?” he asked aloud.

Shaw shrugged. ”I don't know. He was working at his desk and then cried out, as if in pain. He fell to the floor and began to writhe about, and, over the course of several minutes, he seemed to collapse in upon himself. We tried to help him at first, but the changes were dramatic, startling, and frightening. His thras.h.i.+ng about became dangerous and we all had to pull back. That's when I called for you.”

”We'll take him in,” said the medic. He gestured to his companions. ”Load him on the stretcher.”

What happened next might have been funny had it not been so macabre.

The two other medics collapsed the gurney, placed it by me, and moved to lift me onto it. They each took an arm-or what used to be an arm-and pulled, but the transformed limbs just seemed to stretch impossibly and the bulk of my body lay where it had been.

The lead medic moved in to help. They folded my long tubular limbs atop my body. The three of them got their arms under my torso and what had been my hips, and tried to lift me up.

I guess it was like trying to move a puddle of Jello with toothpicks. They tried several times before realizing it wouldn't work.

Finally, they simply rolled me over the edge and up onto the stretcher, rearranging my limbs as best they could and using my clothing as a sort of sling.

Mercifully, they threw a sheet over me as they rushed the gurney to the elevator, to the ground floor, the waiting ambulance, and, at last, to the local hospital with sirens screaming.

*t has been some hours now. They checked me in, put me in a private room, and left me here. I wish I could say I lost consciousness, but I did not.

The strangest thing was that my mind remained my own. No matter how traumatized I had been, the cessation of pain brought a kind of detachment, almost as if I was floating above myself. I did not understand my transformation, but I then became curious.

If I had no skull, what was protecting my brain? What remained of my face was pressed into the bed with some amount of my own flabby body forcing it into the padding, yet I had a sense that I was unharmed. If I had no ribs surrounding it, how did my heart continue to beat? Yet it did, with a strangely rea.s.suring regularity.

I concentrated on moving one of my limbs-what had been my right arm. It twitched.

I focussed my thoughts on reaching up to touch my face. The appendage hesitantly squirmed toward my eye.

I knew an illogical sense of jubilation. For the first time since the onset of the pain, I began to sense that I might have some minute, fragmentary, miniscule, bit of control over something.

Ever so slowly, painstakingly, I guided my right arm. When it finally, tentatively, brushed my face, I discovered two things.

First, that I could still feel things with the limb, changed though it might be. In fact, the sensation of touch seemed to have been enhanced-as if the entire limb had the sensitivity of a fingertip.

Second, what had been my skull was not completely gone. A hard but malleable kind of gristle formed a protective cage around my poor human brain, a cartilaginous cranium, and some kind of similar ridges protected my eyes.

My mouth, however, had been transformed into a lipless, toothless maw that seemed to exude a viscous liquid. My nose was simply gone-not even nostril slits remained.

But I was still breathing . . . in some way.

That was when I began to hear the Bronx-cheer buzzing again, and realized it sounded from what had once been my neck. I focussed on moving the arm again and managed to brush it over a place where ripples of flesh seemed to rise up when I exhaled and draw down when I inhaled.

Sudden realization swept over me. Gills? Great G.o.d, I had gills!

*bustling sound came from the doorway and a white smocked male figure entered the room, closely followed by two nurses.

He stopped when he reached the foot of the bed and looked at the chart. ”This is supposed to be a David Thompson,” he said sarcastically. He threw back the sheet in front of him, exposing my midsection and upper thigh. ”This is not a human. Is this a hoax?”

I felt his hands move over what had been my hip and over what used to be my thigh.

”Wait!” he said suddenly. ”What's this?”

I felt him squeeze the skin of my former thigh together and felt an uncharacteristic lump under the skin.

”I bet I can get this without even requiring a local,” he muttered to himself. He looked around and took a scalpel from a tray, then made a sudden quick, small incision. I felt a bit of pressure and then something seemed to pop. I can't describe it any other way. It actually clattered on the tray.

”Some sort of round metal object,” he observed, picking it up carefully. ”It's about the same size as a bottle cap.” He turned to the second nurse. ”Suture that incision closed. I'm going to look at this through the lab microscope.”

But he took only a few steps before he seemed to freeze. ”What the fu . . . !”

He never finished what he was saying. His voice rose up in a rapid wail and became a scream. His hand snapped into a fist around the object, and he fell heavily to the floor. There he continued to writhe, his screams growing more shrill.

I could not sit up to see clearly, but I guessed immediately what was happening.

Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d, I thought. Now there are two of us.

Subst.i.tution.

Michael Marshall Smith

Michael Marshall Smith is a widely published British author of novels, short stories, and screenplays. His novels include Michael Marshall Smith is a widely published British author of novels, short stories, and screenplays. His novels include Only Forward Only Forward (HarperCollins, 1994), (HarperCollins, 1994), Spares Spares (HarperCollins, 1996), and several novels published as by Michael Marshall. Among his short story collections are (HarperCollins, 1996), and several novels published as by Michael Marshall. Among his short story collections are What You Make It What You Make It (HarperCollins, 1999) and (HarperCollins, 1999) and More Tomorrow and Other Stories More Tomorrow and Other Stories (Earthling, 2003). He is a five-time winner of the British Fantasy Award. (Earthling, 2003). He is a five-time winner of the British Fantasy Award.