[SoylentOrange]

Sorry I've been diverting so much attention to my other stories. I haven't forgotten about this one, I swear. ^^;
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"So, what now?" Katie asked.
"What now is we wait," Mary said, folding her arms and looking at Shandra as she slowly deflated.
"Wait for what?" Katie asked.
"I dunno," Mary shrugged. "The police, the CDC... armageddon,"
Katie slugged Mary on the arm. "Something a litle more specific, please."
"Okay okay," Mary said, giving Katie a small push. "Either the detective gets the CDC or the CDC gets in touch. Either way, we get a little closer to what we- dammit, no!" Mary said, snapping her head to the side. She took a step and kicked her leg out, a wad of tentacles flying away from the leg of the table they were beginning to wrap around. Mary put two fingers to each of her temples and bent forward a bit, her face screwing up in concentration.
"...And I mean it, this time!" Mary called out to the room as she stood up. "I swear, like some kind of dumb puppy..." she said, shaking her head.
"Okay, first things first," Mary said, getting back to the conversation. "We've got water, still, assuming they keep it pumping, and what little electrical we need should hold for a while, but I'm going to need food soon. Lots of food."
""Didn't you just...?" Katie asked, pointing to the wall she'd walked out of the other day.
"Yeah, but that won't tide me over for that long, and the less I wait around for it, the more time I have to try and find a fix. I can probably raid the other apartment's fridges- might even make the Body happy to wait until some of it spoils, ugh- but eventually I'll need something else. You and Shandra have to eat, too."
"Well, with the police on the road, I don't think we can get any deliveries here..." Katie said.
"I can fly, but I don't know that I'd be able to go, get some food, and come back with it in any appreciable amounts," Mary added, hands on her hips.
"Wait, fly? You can fly?" Katie asked, eyes popping at Mary.
"Well, yeah, that's how I got to school the other day. Well, I guess you could say the Body can fly," Mary said, turning to meet Katie's look. "And believe me, you *don't* wanna see it. Thing was uuuuug-lee."
Katie snorted. "What, didn't have huge knockers like the rest of your transformatons?"
"Katie!" Mary squealed, clamping her arms over her chest, blushing if she'd had the blood to run into her cheeks. "It's not like I'm trying to do that!"
"You tell me with a straight face it was the Body's idea to give that big green behemoth triple-J's and I won't bring it up again," Katie continued, poking Mary playfully in the shoulder. Mary was literally shrinking away in embarassmnet, sinking down to her calves in the tentacle-mat.
"I- it- maybe I'm the first time the body's had a girl for a host, okay?" Mary sputtered. "Maybe that's just it's way of thinking 'girl'."
"Riiiight," Katie said, looking down at Mary.
"'M serious..." Mary offered weakly, looking at the floor and trying to suppress her embarrassment.
"Sure, sure," Katie said, going over and sitting on the makeshift coffee-table bed. "But if I wake up one of these days and see boobzilla mark two running around here, I'll know you're a closet case."
Mary melted most of the rest of the way into the floor, only the top of her head peeking over it like she was barely breaking water in a swimming pool. "Oh, hush..." She said, turning away as Katie laughed at her.
"Hey, wait a sec..." Katie said, snapping her fingers. "That's it!"
"What? What's it?" Mary said, turning her head back and rising up out of the floor a bit.
"Dig!" Katie said. "You said you could eat dirt for all the body cared. Why not just dig your way to the corner store or something? It's just down the street."
"Oh, c'mon," Mary said, rising out of the floor enough to rest her elbows on it, her head in her hands. "That's..."
"Your best bet," Katie said, folding one leg over the other. "Think about it. How many different animal and plant species could you find in there? The spice aisle alone is probably enough plant species to keep it placated for weeks."
Mary blinked. That could maybe work, come to think. The Body's hunger was one thing, but it's need to assimilate new genetic sequences was the real problem. Maybe she could string it along long enough to keep its growth at a managable-enough level until the CDC figured something out...
"You think?" Mary asked, rising enough to put her head in her hands, elbows resting on the floor. "But what about the sewer lines and everything? isn't the neighborhood's fiber-optic line buried around here somewhere, too?"
"Weren't you just making a big fuss over how you could have your little army of squirmers not eat certain things?" Katie asked.
"Well, yeah, but I knew about where it was and what I was looking for," Mary said, scratching her scalp under her tentacle-dreadlocks, "I think by the time I realized I was eating a sewer main... brrr," She said, shuddering at the thought.
"Well, then can't you just go slow?" Katie asked. "I mean, c'mon, it took the little buggers a little while to get through drywall, surely if you were paying attention and taking things slowly you could tell when you'd gone from dirt to metal and stop before you ate through it."
"Taking things slowly?" Mary echoed, fidgeting into her toga as she more fully re-formed. "Even going straight underground it's over a quarter of a mile to the store."
"And what, you've got a hot date?" Katie asked, spreading her hands. "Hell, I'd offer to help you dig, if only to stave off cabin fever. You've pretty much locked the three of us in here until this thing is over."
Mary stood for a moment, contemplating. It's not like she had much of a choice; even if she could covertly feed the Body through sneaking trips to the river and whatnot, Katie and Shandra still needed to eat. Well, at least Katie did; Mary was content with having Shandra dispose of Katie's milk, even in spite of- maybe even because of, she thought- how distasteful Shandra found the act.
"Well... Okay, then, I guess I'll start digging where the fridge used to be," Mary said, turning to look at where the kitchen once stood. "But I'm gonna be taking it pretty slow," She cautioned, "because even if the body could digest it okay, I do *not* want the apartment smelling like... *That* if I break a pipe," She finished, blanching again.
"Hey, be as careful as you need," Katie said, shrugging. "It's your dinner you're digging for, after all."