Morgan lashed the shotgun to a chair, aimed it at the door, and ran a
length of cord from the trigger to the shattered lock. "Don't trip
over the cord in the night," he warned as he blew out the lamp. Then
he bedded down in the corner on the floor.
A short time later he heard her sobbing softly. "What the devil's
wrong?" he snarled disgustedly.
"Thanks, Morgan--thanks," she whispered.
For a moment he felt sorry for her. Apparently she was thanking him
for the bed. Fat boy had evidently taken the best of everything and
given her the crumbs of Lazarus. Such were the mores of chaos. But
Morgan quit congratulating himself. He had chosen the floor because it
looked cleaner than the bed.
He was awakened before dawn by the rapid sputter of rain on the roof.
It dribbled through several holes and spread across the floor. He sat
up shivering. Shera was a glowing cigarette near the window.
"Can't sleep?" he asked.
"I'm scared," she answered.
Faintly he could see her profile silhouetted against the pane. She was
watching outside the cabin.
"I've got a funny feeling--that something's out there."
"Heard anything?"
"Just a feeling."
Morgan felt ice along his sides. "Shera--do you get hunches, feelings,
intuitions very often?" His voice was hushed, worried.
"Yeah."
"Have you always?"
"No--I don't think I used to."
He was silent for a long time; then he hissed, "Are you _sure_ you
haven't been stung recently?"
Another brief silence. Then the girl laughed softly. A wave of
prickles crept along his scalp.
"I've got the shotgun in my lap, Morgan."
* * * * *
"How long?" he whispered in horror.
"Six months."
"_Six months!_ You're lying! You'd be fully depersonalized! You'd be
in complete liaison with Oren!"
"But I'm not. Sometimes I can feel when they're near. That's all."
"But if it were true--your brain would be replaced by the parasite!"
"I wouldn't know. Apparently it's not."
Morgan couldn't believe it. But he sat stunned in the darkness. What
was this thing in the cabin with him? Was she still human? He began
inching along the wall, but a board creaked.
"I don't want to shoot you, Morgan. Don't rush me. Besides--there's
something outside, I tell you."
"Why should _you_ worry about that?--if you've really been stung."
"The first sting evidently didn't take. The next one might. That's
why."
"You weren't sick?"
"During the incubation period? I was sick. Plenty sick."
Morgan shook his head thoughtfully. If she had been through the
violent illness of the parasite's incubation, she should now have one
of the squeaking little degenerates in place of a brain. The fibers of
the small animals grew slowly along the neural arcs, replacing each
nerve cell, forming a junction at each synapse. There was reason to
believe that the parasite preserved the memories that had been stored
in the brain, but they became blended with all the other
individualities that comprised Oren, thereby losing the personality in
the mental ocean of the herd-mind. Was it possible that if one
invader were out of mental contact with the herd-mind, that the
individual host might retain its personality? But how could she be out
of contact?
"They're getting close to the door," she whispered.
Morgan gripped his hatchet and waited, not knowing who would be the
greater enemy--the girl or the prowlers.
"When the door opens, strike a match. So I can see to shoot."
Morgan crouched low. There came a light tapping at the torn screen,
then several seconds of silence. Someone pushed at the door. It swung
slowly open.
"Jerry?" called a faint voice. "Jerry--thet you in theah?"
Morgan breathed easily again. An Orenian would not have called out.
"Who is it?" he barked.
There was no answer. Morgan groped for the lamp, found it, and held
the match poised but not lighted.
"Come in here!" he ordered. "We've got a gun."
"Yes, suh!"
A shadow appeared in the door frame. Morgan struck the match. It was
an ancient Negro with a burlap sack in one hand and a bloodstained
pitchfork in the other. He stood blinking at Shera's shotgun and at
the lamp as Morgan lit it. His overalls were rainsoaked, his eyes
wild.
"Come in and sit down."
"Thankya suh, thankya." He shuffled inside and slumped into a rickety
chair.
"What're you doing wandering around like this?"
"Been a hunting. Yes, suh, been doing me a little hunting." He sighed
wearily and mopped the rain out of his tight coils of graying hair.
Morgan eyed the burlap sack suspiciously. It was wet, and it wriggled.
"What's that?"
"'Ass my night's work," said the man and jerked a corner of the sack.
It opened, and three Oren parasites spilled out with weak squeaks of
anguish.
The girl gasped angrily. "They're still in contact with Oren. Kill
them!"
"Yes'm, they're in contact--but without eyes, how're they gonna know
wheah they are?"
Morgan made a wry mouth at Shera. The old man was smart--and right.
But he felt another uneasy suspicion. The old man said "hunting."
Hunting for what--food? The idea twisted disgust in Morgan's stomach.
"What're you going to do with them?"
"Oh--" The oldster kicked one of them lightly with his toe. The pink
thing rolled against the wall. There were vestigial signs of arms,
legs, but tiny and useless, grown fast to the body. The visitor
glanced up with a sheepish grin.
"I feed 'em to my dawgs, suh. Dawgs like 'em. Getting so my dawgs can
smell the difference twixt a man and an Orenian. I'm training 'em.
They help me with my hunting."