Free Oh Hell No! (Pulse Science Fiction Series Book 3) by John Freitas Page A

was a good reason.
    Under the glass she saw an
advertisement from a magazine pasted to the pavement. It was glossy paper that
made the model shine even with the fading of the weather. Her body was skinny,
but proportional. The model looked wildly tall and her head was not bulbous
like human heads were in Loriei’s time. She had hair and her skin was a healthy
brown. This woman could be one of Loriei’s ancestors from before the plagues.
She would not be recognized by this model or anyone from her generation.
    The lice that were already embedded
in her skull shifted as the tiny louse burrowed back into the scalp. They were
prepared to fight an intruder that did not match their flock. They recognized
the new generation as one of theirs and settled back down. The infestation in
her head went from pain back to a dull itch that could not be scratched.
    “She would not recognize us,”
Loriei said to the glass and the model under her. “This won’t work.”
    The words were important.
Something needed to be adjusted. Loriei knew she needed to get to the lab and
tell this to her colleagues, but then she forgot why and continued to stare
drifting further from herself leaning on the brick wall in the open like her
father told her not to do.
    She felt hunger build inside her
and she started scratching at her skin through her dress. Her flock began to stir
within the bumpy skin of her broad skull.
    It was the music that brought her
back. She heard it like a cry or a whine of something in pain. She thought
about going to see if it was something wounded that she could kill and eat. As
this idea bubbled like an unscratched itch in the lower part of her brain, the
strained, higher parts recognized the beauty and then realized it was the
strings of a violin she heard. The notes traveling to her ears through the air
registered as emotional strains more than they did as sounds. It pulled at her
mind and made her feel more attached to herself and her body again despite the
surreal haze that fogged her thinking.
    She stopped scratching and waited
for her lice to settle back into a state of rest while she listening to the bow
draw music from the strings somewhere in the distance.
    Loriei stood up straight and
waited for the wave of dizziness to pass. She shuffled forward through the
glass and away from the wall. She steered herself around the rusted hulks of
abandoned cars, dismembered androids and the debris of fallen cinderblock and
broken furniture.
    She finally reached a field where
she stared out at a man. He was nearly naked except for the shreds of pants
that looked like they used to be denim. His skin was completely gray meaning
his ancestors had probably been European in origin. His enlarged head wobbled
on his thin neck as he played. His scalp was split open and Loriei could see
the lice feeding on the bloody wound and exposed brains. He was in the final
stages and would not last much longer.
    He missed notes from time to time
as his fingers danced and the bow glided back and forth, but he otherwise had
the tune. She did not understand how he was still capable.
    Two of his lice tumbled out of his
skull into the tall grass of the field. They were swollen as large as his fists
closed together. They lay still and sated not even trying to right themselves
as they had gorged themselves on their final meal of their dying host. Once
they became active again, these lice would seek out a new host and battle the
native flock for control on another’s skull. The unlucky target might not
survive the competition for territory. Loriei wanted to be far away when this
happened.
    The man stopped in mid note. The
silence was thick. He held the violin and bow in place as his eyes went wide.
He seemed to be waiting for something – maybe to remember his place in the
performance.
    His fingers went slack and both
the violin and the hairy bow dropped softy to the grass beside the shed lice.
The man looked down as he shuffled away. Whatever piece of