Read Online Nocturnal Emissions by Jeffrey Thomas - Free Book Online
Authors: Jeffrey Thomas
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them.
“Well, how about you? Sometimes I don’t know how you do it alone, Clare.”
“Oh, Gary sees Dylan every other weekend, and usually at least one evening during the week. He’s still a good father, I have to give him that.”
Clare had straightened up her body in her chair in order to pay her ex-husband these compliments. She had to show her grace, her strength, even as it ate at her that after almost ten years of marriage her husband had left her for another woman. Blonder, much more slender. And now, pregnant. She hoped it wouldn’t be a host-kid, she really did. After all, what kind of self-respecting, mature, well-balanced adult would hope otherwise?
“Here’s our little guys now,” Patricia said, smiling fondly, as her son Chad and Dylan came into her livingroom.
They came like two frat boys who’d been drinking too hard, stumbling and bumping into each other and half leaning on each other. Chad was crying.
He looked beat up and feverish and ill-rested all at once. Mucus glistened thickly over his upper lip, and he licked at it. Patricia sped over to him to wipe it away. “Don’t lap it, honey, how many times have I told you?” She also dabbed away a trickle of the stuff that had run down his neck out of his ear.
She rubbed vigorously at the collar of his expensive sweater. Next she dabbed his eyes; the wetness leaking from them might not consist solely of tears.
Dylan wasn’t crying, but he looked drugged, his gaze meandering around the room as if he couldn’t distinguish his mother from the furnishings. Actually he was drugged, for pain and to keep the parasites’ growth, activity and reproduction in check, though there was no way yet that could be found to poison the parasites entirely or root them out fully without involving delicate brain surgery. Clare went to him and took his hand and his befuddled eyes found her at last. It seemed like the last time they had looked bright and alive had been on that flight home from Hong Kong , so many miles and years before.
Well, she still prized those dark slanted eyes. But though she had studied Chinese culture extensively, and admired it to the degree that she felt would be expected of her, she couldn’t help but congratulate herself that here she was taking such very good care of a little boy from a country where murdering healthy infants simply for being female had once been so widespread. It was her responsibility, as an educated and sophisticated human being, to represent her species in a much more civilized and enlightened fashion. It was all about courage, tenacity, personal grit. Patience, balance, and endurance. Endurance above all else. These qualities had served her well in college, and in the work-place. She had never known they would also become such valuable resources in this way.
These qualities were what enabled her to smile into her son’s face, as he looked up at her now, even with the bulge protruding from his brow where some of his parasites—a dozen in number, the most recent scans indicated—had bored through his skull and laid a cache of eggs under the flesh. The doctors reassured her that they felt these eggs wouldn’t hatch, since being so close to the surface like this had made it easier and safer to inject enough of a solution to prevent the larvae from developing. Hopefully. But Dylan still bore scars on other parts of his head (patches of hair were missing or growing back unevenly) where clusters of newborn worms had spontaneously erupted. They couldn’t all be sustained within the narrow confines of a single brain, so it was their habit to lay their eggs and hatch nearer to the surface, in order to spread afield in search of other hosts. (And it was still being determined why they only chose children from newborns to adolescence.) It was just the occasional stray worm that lost its way back inside the head, and got too comfortable to seek egress again, that caused their numbers to grow within a single host. Not
“Well, how about you? Sometimes I don’t know how you do it alone, Clare.”
“Oh, Gary sees Dylan every other weekend, and usually at least one evening during the week. He’s still a good father, I have to give him that.”
Clare had straightened up her body in her chair in order to pay her ex-husband these compliments. She had to show her grace, her strength, even as it ate at her that after almost ten years of marriage her husband had left her for another woman. Blonder, much more slender. And now, pregnant. She hoped it wouldn’t be a host-kid, she really did. After all, what kind of self-respecting, mature, well-balanced adult would hope otherwise?
“Here’s our little guys now,” Patricia said, smiling fondly, as her son Chad and Dylan came into her livingroom.
They came like two frat boys who’d been drinking too hard, stumbling and bumping into each other and half leaning on each other. Chad was crying.
He looked beat up and feverish and ill-rested all at once. Mucus glistened thickly over his upper lip, and he licked at it. Patricia sped over to him to wipe it away. “Don’t lap it, honey, how many times have I told you?” She also dabbed away a trickle of the stuff that had run down his neck out of his ear.
She rubbed vigorously at the collar of his expensive sweater. Next she dabbed his eyes; the wetness leaking from them might not consist solely of tears.
Dylan wasn’t crying, but he looked drugged, his gaze meandering around the room as if he couldn’t distinguish his mother from the furnishings. Actually he was drugged, for pain and to keep the parasites’ growth, activity and reproduction in check, though there was no way yet that could be found to poison the parasites entirely or root them out fully without involving delicate brain surgery. Clare went to him and took his hand and his befuddled eyes found her at last. It seemed like the last time they had looked bright and alive had been on that flight home from Hong Kong , so many miles and years before.
Well, she still prized those dark slanted eyes. But though she had studied Chinese culture extensively, and admired it to the degree that she felt would be expected of her, she couldn’t help but congratulate herself that here she was taking such very good care of a little boy from a country where murdering healthy infants simply for being female had once been so widespread. It was her responsibility, as an educated and sophisticated human being, to represent her species in a much more civilized and enlightened fashion. It was all about courage, tenacity, personal grit. Patience, balance, and endurance. Endurance above all else. These qualities had served her well in college, and in the work-place. She had never known they would also become such valuable resources in this way.
These qualities were what enabled her to smile into her son’s face, as he looked up at her now, even with the bulge protruding from his brow where some of his parasites—a dozen in number, the most recent scans indicated—had bored through his skull and laid a cache of eggs under the flesh. The doctors reassured her that they felt these eggs wouldn’t hatch, since being so close to the surface like this had made it easier and safer to inject enough of a solution to prevent the larvae from developing. Hopefully. But Dylan still bore scars on other parts of his head (patches of hair were missing or growing back unevenly) where clusters of newborn worms had spontaneously erupted. They couldn’t all be sustained within the narrow confines of a single brain, so it was their habit to lay their eggs and hatch nearer to the surface, in order to spread afield in search of other hosts. (And it was still being determined why they only chose children from newborns to adolescence.) It was just the occasional stray worm that lost its way back inside the head, and got too comfortable to seek egress again, that caused their numbers to grow within a single host. Not
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