Free Dominant Species Volume One -- Natural Selection (Dominant Species Series) by David Coy

to shred the godamned
thing with his teeth.
    When the
wasp flew out of the hole in the wall of the chamber, its buzz filled his head
like insufferable music. He saw it in his peripheral vision as a dark flash and
spun on it in a fury of flailing, slapping and grabbing hands. The wasp was as
big as a cigar butt though Phil could see through his white rage that it wasn’t
really a wasp, but an alien, evil insect thing. It hovered just out of his
reach as he jumped and swiped at it.
    The wasp
dashed down at him so fast even his rage- heightened reflexes couldn’t stop or
deflect it. He felt it hit his chest like a rock then saw it fly back up to its
position and hover there. He was so focused on the wasp’s destruction that he
didn’t see the drop of blood forming over the pin-hole-sized wound the strike
left in his chest. A second later, he felt the fiery sting in the place where
it hit him, then the wasp flashed down and struck him again in the neck this
time. He batted wildly at it with both hands again and again as the wasp
attacked. He missed and missed; and, with each strike, he grew more inflamed
and frustrated until he wept like a child with rage.
    He began fumbling, making
uncontrollable movements that caused him to stumble and bang into the walls as
he struck at the attacking wasp. Then, suddenly, he collapsed into a naked,
twitching heap on the chamber’s floor.
    The wasp hovered and
waited until it could detect none of the big, fast, swishing movements. When it
was sure no big movement remained, it approached slowly and hovered just a few
inches over Phil’s body.
    His rage was now
completely sealed, capped off in his paralyzed body. Seething with useless
fury, he watched the wasp land on his leg. From there, it began to scurry in
all directions over his body as if searching, hunting something. Devoid of all
tactile sensation, he watched it as if he were seeing it crawl over someone
else.
    The wasp had won the
battle. He was the loser and was at the mercy of this alien insect. It could do
with him as it pleased, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. He
expected it to start eating him any moment. The raging child in him bawled in
anger.
    The wasp crawled to a spot
on his gut just below his navel and stopped there. It arched its abdomen high
and swung the tip of it until it was pointed straight down just a centimeter or
so from his skin. He watched helplessly as the female wasp’s needle-like
ovipositor made contact with his skin and pierced effortlessly. Deeper it sank
until its two-inch length was completely imbedded.
    Eggs, he thought with
horror. The damn thing is laying its
eggs in my body.
    In his
mind, he screamed.
    Phil’s
heart beat faster, as reality, like that sickening needle, sank in.
    Over the
next hour Phil watched helplessly as the wasp pierced him a hundred times or more
and deposited her eggs in him. In his arms, his legs, his groin, his chest, his
abdomen, the wasp planted egg after egg. It worked quickly and efficiently,
fearless in the unhuman knowledge that its victim was completely and totally
its own to use.
    In spite of the paralysis,
he sometimes felt the slow, stiff pressure of the needle as it pierced him.
     
    *   *   *
     
    When Bailey whimpered,
Mary spooned closer to her and smelled the warm musk of her hair. There was no sexual
urge, no lust, just the comfort of one human body to another, and the contact
soothed them like a balm. Mary touched Bailey’s hair and pulled it gently back
from her ear. She saw a thin scar running straight in a lateral line from the
back of her ear to the base of her neck. That was unusual. They usually didn’t
have to cut quite that high. The scars were always so straight and so perfect
that they sometimes looked drawn on.
    God,
they’re good at what they do, she thought.
    Mary noticed then, for the
first time, that Bailey wasn’t just attractive, but truly beautiful. In spite
of the condition of her coarse dark hair and the