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

along the dark wall.
    He got a
full look at the creature that had carried him there. Its head reminded him of
those fancy goldfish with the globular structures covering their heads, except
in this case, the head wasn’t fish-like, but humanoid. The thing was massive,
easily four hundred pounds. The musculature was distorted and overdeveloped,
but not like the clean cut and appealing form of a body builder. It was just
enormous and huge without detailing. The eyes were fixed and blank in the folds
of its face and there was a dull, staring coldness about them like he’d seen in
the eyes of many psychotics. The mouth was barely visible and buried in the
globular folds surrounding it.
    The huge
hands straightened his arms and legs onto the table roughly. Then, as it turned
to go, it patted him on the chest in mock comfort with one of those enormous
hams. When it did, Phil saw the tattoo of the unicorn on the giant forearm,
stretched and distorted by the underlying bone and muscle, and realized that he
was looking not at an alien creature, but a human made alien by having been
given some incredible growth hormone that exploded its bone structure and
musculature. He managed to turn his head slightly and saw another one just like
it at the wall removing a limp body from one of the cells. He watched it swing
the body up over its shoulders like a sack and then lumber over to one of the
tables and flop in down.
    With
effort, he turned his head back and saw the alien devices hanging from the attachments
above like grotesque and menacing fruit. The devices had little relation to
anything from any science he was familiar with. Many of them were dull metallic
in construction, but some of the more formidable ones seemed to be biotic,
alive, or nearly so. He thought he could see what looked like a rapidly pulsing
vein in one of the more bizarre mechanisms. One dripped a clear fluid from the
tip of a thin and sinister appendage.
    The alien
was at his side in a blink, touching his body, his face, probing his mouth with
its quick fingers. It reached up and took hold of the device with the dripping
appendage then worked the thin, wiry probe up his left nostril, and he could
feel it, feel it ,
moving though his sinuses. He was sure the probe was moving under its own
power, squirming in his head. He tasted a bitter taste in the back of his
throat.
    With the
strength of his will . . . he forced the horror down deep. He sealed it there
with his tightly closed eyes, then sank into the relative haven of shock.
    Sleep was
Mary’s benefactor. She dreamed about her muttly dog, Puck. In the dream Puck
was humping the jeans-clad leg of her friend June while the two of them, with
their heads tilted back like debutantes, laughed at the irony of it.
    “This dog
has a very, very misplaced sex drive,” June said clearly in the dream.
    “Oh, I know,” Mary replied perfectly.
    The
hissing whistle sound sneaked around Mary’s barrier of sleep like an unwelcome
guest and poked her meanly awake. She snapped to full consciousness, heart
racing.
    The
whistling was down the tube to the left and when she heard the whimpering pleas
of Fred Jones, she knew he was one of the ones this time. Sweet Fred. A
man-child without a trace of guile. He had been the one who had oriented her to
this horrific world. When her mind had sunk deep into the bog of denial, Fred
had gently led her to the truth.
    “Not me!”
She heard him say. That was not like Fred at all. “Not me! I just went! No! No!
I won’t!”
    Big
mistake, Mary thought. Don’t
get mad. Just go. He should know better.
    When she
heard Fred’s scream she knew that a big bastard had grabbed him. It wasn’t fun
being grabbed by a big bastard.
    The noise
woke Bailey. “What’s that?” she asked.
    “Guy down
the way won’t cooperate. Big mistake.” There was no rule against it, and Mary
wanted to know what was going on so she got up, moved to the opening and looked
out.
    Fred was
screaming and choking at