was bullshit (except the part where he said the government was responsible—that part she believed).
She thought that it wasn’t really a parasite that grew inside people because Adam’s legs were mutilated and whatever it was had to be much, much bigger to do that. And because it didn’t make any damned sense. She knew enough about science to know that.
Then she saw its teeth—at first all she saw was teeth—and she realized just how wrong she was.
With that many teeth it can do whatever the hell it wants, Red thought.
Her mind tried to shy away from what she was seeing, because it wasn’t supposed to be. There were things like this in monster movies, but they were robots or puppets or computer-generated inserts. They weren’t giant black slugs that uncurled from the remains of a rib cage. They didn’t have a head made of teeth.
So many teeth—shaped like a great white shark’s serrated triangles and stacked like a whirling buzzsaw in concentric circles, and everything about them defied the biological laws of nature.
It seemed to grow even as Red watched, the uncoiling muscles expanding.
Something like this could only be made in a lab, Red thought, and she almost laughed out loud but it would be a hysterical laughing because her brain was on the verge of breaking. She actually was inside one of the horror movies that she loved so much, and there was a flesh-eating monster and a government conspiracy to boot.
And Adam had been right all along—it had been a monster living inside people. A first in all the history of the world, she thought, and then tried not to choke on her tears and her fear because this was what had killed him.
The Thing That Should Not Be rose up, not unlike a snake from a basket. But Red was no snake charmer, and there were no eyes on the creature to charm.
“Sam,” Red said. “Go inside the house.”
Red felt rather than saw Sam shake her head no.
“Sam, you have to listen to me. You have to get away,” Red said.
“I don’t want to leave you,” Sam said in her tiniest voice. “What if it runs after me?”
“It can’t run. It doesn’t have any legs,” Red said, and snorted. That crazy laughter was brewing just under the surface. She had to get herself under control. There was a kid present and it wouldn’t do for Sam to see her sort-of-guardian completely lose her shit.
“Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to back away slowly.”
The Thing That Should Not Be made a kind of hissing noise in their direction. Red realized it wasn’t vocalizing. It was just spinning its terrible teeth.
If I ever see Sirois again I am going to shake him until he tells me just what the hell these things are and why anyone thought it was a good idea to create them in the first place.
Red shifted her right foot backward. Sam had a death grip on that pant leg, so the little girl shuffled back too.
“Nice and easy,” Red said. “We’re just going to leave it here and make our way—”
It leapt with astonishing swiftness. Red saw all those teeth filling her field of vision. She swung the axe purely on instinct, using her leg to push Sam back and away from both the axe and the monster.
The axe caught the creature just behind the buzzing sawteeth. It didn’t slice clean, though, because Red hadn’t put enough effort into the swing. The axe blade was embedded halfway through but the thing was too
Stupid? Powerful? Magical?
to die just because it had a blade stuck inside it. Red drove her arm toward the ground and the creature bucked and fought, trying to coil its head around to bite her wrist. She slammed the creature onto the ground and pushed the axe all the way through and the end with the teeth popped off.
The other end of the creature lay still but the teeth kept moving, trying to bite. Bright purple fluid leaked out of both ends of the monster, looking like nothing