New TF Story

[SoylentOrange]

Mary wandered across the parking lot, the black asphalt stained glossy by the morning's dew. The sun wasn't really out yet, not for the pacific northwest anyways, but it was bright enough to be pleasant. Mary saw a pair of birds flying through the sky and thought about going back into the forest, but with the Body's incessant needs for more genetic material it was beginning to feel like work. No, what she needed was some human contact. Not anyone too familiar with her, but just to be around faces that weren't green and voices that didn't come from inside her head.

Mary snugged her sweater against herself, turning towards the southern driveway out of her apartment complex. She decided she'd go to the convenience store just down the street, at the first intersection down from her and Katie's complex. As the brisk wind blew by, Mary smelled something odd on the air, a musky smell, like a wet dog. Concentrating on the smell, she realized she could seperate it out somehow into two seperate dogs- an Irish Wolfhound and a Husky/German Shepherd mix. Mary clamped her hand over her nose, wondering what on earth was going on.
"Are your senses not working properly?" The Body asked, causing Mary to roll her eyes and slump her shoulders as she walked down the sidewalk.
"What did you do to me *now*?" Mary asked.
"We have realized from the other seeds we have taken in that your senses are dull, compared to the other meat in this place. Extensive, perhaps, but dull. We simply sought to improve upon them. Were we in error?"
Mary took her hand away from her mouth and realized the Body was right. The birds she head chirping had to have been a few football fields away, and she could read the names on the streetsigns all the way down the block if she squinted. The Body had given her eagle eyes, a bloodhound's nose, and ears like a bat.
"N-No, it's fine..." Mary replied to the Body. "Uh, thank you, I guess?"
"The Body exists to aid the Mind in the great purpose of the Flesh," the Body said back. It was still rather disconcerting, but any good debate relies on a back-and-forth; if Mary was going to have to make some concessions in her bargian to save humanity, she supposed this was one she could live with pretty easily.

As Mary entered the convenience store, she was relieved to see how normal it was, looking much the same as it always did. No tentacles, no half-eaten countertops, just the same rows of magazines, stacks of brightly-colord candies, and the low hum of a refridgerated soda fountain. Mary leisurely browsed the aisles, taking comfort in all the little eccentricities of the store's unusal inventory, sanitary napkins next to a sunglass rack with a box of "energy supplements" on top of that, every little nick-nack and piece of junk food crammed as tightly into the shelves as it could be. Mary paused and picked up a fruit pie off the shelf; the little single-serving treats were too sweet for her, but Katie loved them, and while not remotely close to actual restitution, Mary hoped Katie would appreciate the gesture nonetheless.

As she passed the hot dog roller, Mary's mouth began to water and she hauled to a stop, looking quizzically at the slowly-sliding hot dogs, glistening with grease and sickly-looking under their heat lamp. Mary felt her hand moving towards the hot dogs of its own accord until she was able to mentally wrest control of her hand back.
"What are you doing?!" Mary shouted inside her head.
"We desire the seeds of that meat," The Body said. "Why do you resist?"
"Because there's a ritual we have to follow if we don't want predators to swarm down upon us!" Mary repeated for what must have been the hundredth time. For a being capable of interstellar flight, the Body seemed amazingly dense at times.
"Oh. Of course," The body said, and Mary felt the creeping sensation of the Body's control fade from her. Mary picked up the tongs and grabbed a hot dog off the rack, grimmacing slightly as it made a kind of greasy velcro sound at being taken off the rollers. She dropped it in a bun, then went over to the free condiments and heaped it high with mustard, ketchup, relish, onions, pickles, and even a dab of the nacho cheese, any thing to mask the taste of an indeterminately-aged conveninece-store hot dog. Mary looked at the heap of artificial chemicals somehow warped into something that could technically be classified as food and grimmaced.
"You sure you want this?" Mary asked.
"Oh yes, very much," The Body eagerly replied. Mary shook her head and paid for her items.

The first bite Mary took felt almost similar to when she'd drank bleach. Her face screwed up as she chewed, knowing that there was nothing that could hurt her but feeling distasteful all the same.
"Oh, this is glorious!" The Body exclaimed. "So many seeds!"
"Seeds?" Mary asked, halting mid-chew.
"Oh yes, much better than those we added to our glory previously," The body said. "And from so many different meats at once! Truly wonderous."
Mary looked at the hot dog, realizing that the "Seeds" the Body was talking about was the dna of all the different micro-organisms living on the hot dog.
"There are even seeds within some of the other seeds," The Body continued. "Why, there are-"
"You know what?" Mary interrupted. "No, stop, no more."
"What?" The Body asked. "You confuse us."
"You like it, that's great, I'm happy for you," Mary said as she took another reluctant bite. "Just spare me the details, I don't want to know."

Mary grimmaced as she approached her old apartment, fishing her key out of her purse. She was sure if she still had a stomach that it would be roiling right then. The ramifications of what the Body apparently found tasty caused her to cringe; what else would it like to sample, a dumpster? Compost? Mary shuddered as she fit the key in the lock and went inside, the warmer apartment air much more inviting than the chill outside air. She shut the door behind her, making her way through the front room and into Katie's bedroom, putting the fruit pie on her desk in front of her computer. A nice little surprise when she got home.

Mary noticed that Katie's computer was still on, and thought back to the CDC e-mail she'd replied to, wondering briefly if they'd replied yet. Certain that Katie wouldn't mind, MAry sat down at Katie's computer and accessed her e-mail client. The CDC hadn't responded, so Mary just delted the few spam messages that had accumulated, then opened the previous CDC e-mail to see if she could glean any new insights from it. She was disappointed that she couldn't send a "sample" of the parasite, but she didn't trust her tentcles outside her immediate vicinity. She didn't know how far her control over them extended, and certainly didn't want to find out what happened to any Flesh without either the Body or the Mind there to control it. What she needed was a dead version, like a fossil or something.

Mary perked up, remembering the meteorite. It might contain enough traces of what the Body originally was! A longshot, to be sure, but as Mary rose from her chair and headed to the kitchen she knew it was the best lead she had at this point. The little crater spiked into her floor was still there, but the fragments of the meteorite was gone. At first Mary wondered if it had dissolved or merged back in with the Flesh or something, but the presence of a broom leaning against the refridgerator posited a much simpler explanation: Katie had swept the pieces up. Mary looked in the trash can, but found it empty, only a breakfast shake in the bottom of the bag. Mary blanched, not about to go searching the outside dumpster for fear the Body might get peckish again. Instead, she got down on her hands and knees, hoping that perhaps Katie's sweeping had been haphazard enough that a sizable enough piece wound up under the refridgerator or the lip of the counter. She crawled up and down the length of the tiny kitchen, finding little more than black specks in the crevices of the counter, so small and indistinct she couldn't be sure if they were particulate from the meteorite or just poppy seeds off of Katie's morning bagels.

There came a sharp knock on the door, and Mary instinctively called out "Coming!" before cringing, having overstayed her welcome in what was ostensibly no longer her apartment. She looked up at the hole in the ceiling, wondering if she could just slip through and leave whatever deliveryman or solicitor waiting until they went away.
"Police!" Barked the officer behind the door, and MAry nearly melted with panic, feeling like she was literally going to unravel in a split second.
"J-Just a second!" She called back, shakily rising to her feet.
"Okay, listen. LISTEN," She said to the Body. "One of the predators has come here- STOP!" She yelled, feeling her fingers pull into claws. "Do NOT attempt to eat them! They will bring more and more and overwhelm us!"
"But our glory-"
"To hell with your glory!" Mary yelled inside her head as she staggered stiffly towards the door. "They don't yet know I'm Prey! If you just let me handle everything, I can get them to leave and never return!" Mary looked through the peephole and saw them, one male and one female officer. She took a few deep breaths, looking to make sure she didn't have any fangs poking out or anything. The officers knocked again as Mary reached to open the door, the male officer's third knock whiffing as she opened it.
"Mary Carver?" The male officer asked.
"Yes?" Mary replied, trying to stay calm. She realized that without an autonomic nervous system that she had no pores to sweat out of, no heartbeat to race, so hoepfully the officers couldn't read any suspicious body language off of her.
"Can we come in?" He asked.
"Oh, you know, it's kind of a mess," Mary said as she began to step outside, "But we can talk out here-"
"Actually, ma'am, it's kinda important that we see inside," The male officer said again. "May we please come inside?"
Mary's mind raced. Not wanting to arouse suspicion by being stubborn, she agreed.
"Doesn't look very messy to me," The officer said as he stepped inside.
"Oh, well, I, ah, was jus trying to be polite," Mary said, faking a nervous laugh. "Really it was the wet shoes, I didn't want you muckhing up the carpet, but I didn't want to hurt your feelings, either."
"I don't mind if you hurt my feelings," The officer said, "Just don't lie to me."
"S-sorry," Mary stammered, almost missing the thumping of her nervous heart, if only to give her some kind of psychic metronome.
"So, you called for Jerod Alogara on the morning of the 23rd, is that correct?" The male officer asked.
"Yes," Mary said, then caught herself. "Well, I mean, that's the repair guy, right?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Oh, and I called the day before. Really quick service for this place," She said, cracking a smile.
"Not fast enough, apparently," He said. "Could you show me what he was supposed to fix?"
"Sure, it's right here," Mary said, gesturing to the kitchen floor."It was that meteor shower earlier in the week, dropped straight through the ceiling."
Both policemen looked up at the hole in the ceiling, and she felt a feral instinct seize her, a desire to slit their throats, rip out their windpipes.
"STOP!" She yelled to the Body. "You're going to get us killed!"
"They're vulnerable!" The body yelled back. "Kill the predators while you've got the chance!"
"That will just bring more of them! STop it! STOP. IT!" Mary yelled, setting her jaw.
"Ma'am, is there a reason you're clenching your fists like that?" The female officer asked, arching an eyebrow at Mary.
"Huh?" Mary asked, before realizing she was squeezing her fists tightly. "Oh, that. Just, typing too long. I was doing a paper this morning," She said, giving a weak chuckle and grabbing one hand in the other, waggling her fingers while she massaged the bones on the back of her hand, or at least where they would be if she had them.
"You're still in school?" The male officer asked.
"Law school," Mary said, still feeling the subtle prickle of the Body's aggression just under her skin. "The one up by the freeway, just off exit-"
Mary was interrupted by a trio of thumps against the ceiling, and not only did she hear them, she'd felt them, as Shandra banged her heel against the floor. A cold tingle of dread raced over Mary's skin as she quickly diverted her attention to her lair, a surge of tentacles tightly immobilizing Shandra in seconds.
"What was that?" The male officer asked, following Mary's gaze.
"Oh, uh, just the neightbor's dog scratching itself probably," Mary said, waving the incident off.
"...You know pets aren't allowed in any of these apartment complexes, right?" The female officer said.
Mary felt her whole body tense, but she fought it back, letting her head droop.
"Ho, geeeze, she's gonna kill me..." Mary said, feigning sorrow.
"You know we're gonna have to tell the landowner when we leave, right?" The female officer said.
"Yeah, okay..." Mary said, shrugging her shoulders. "So what did you want to know about the repairman? What was his name again?"
"Jerod," The male officer said. "Now, when you called-"
"Wait a sec," The female officer said. "Okay?"
"Okay what?" Mary asked.
"Well, you don't sound too upset about your neighbor losing her dog," She said. "Were you two not friendly with one another?"
"Oh no, we're best friends," Mary said, "Since we were freshmen. But what'm I gonna do- stop you?"
"...Do you think she'd mind if we took a look inside?" The female officer asked.
"I dunno, probably not, but she's not home right now..." Mary said, trying to sound casual and innocent
"Well, we can get a key from the super," The male officer said. "Why don't you come with us, in case we forget the unit number?"
Oh God, Mary thought, they're trying to trap me.
"Well here, I'll just write it down on a sticky note," Mary said, opening the closest counter drawer to her but finding it arranged completely differently than she was used to. "Got some around here somewhere..." She went through two more drawers, trying not to appear too frantic in her searches. "Well, anyways, it's 22-D, not hard to remember at all, she said, smiling.
"I'd still like it if you came with us," The female officer said, shifting her stance to face Mary more directly.

Mary knew she shouldn't have said it. It was a terribly rookie mistake, the kind of thing she would groan at watching deposition videos in class, but she said it anyways.
"Do I have to?"
"Ma'am, are you hiding something from us?" The male officer said, also turning to more fully face Mary, the two officers trapping Mary in her small kitchen.
"No!" Mary exclaimed, "Not at all!" But despite the lie, Mary was devoting nearly all her attention and willpower just to keeping the Body in check, it's calls for bloodshed ringing in her ears.
"Then why can't you come with us? Where's the fire?" He asked.
"Well, I mean, I just..." Mary stammered.
"Ma'am, I'm afraid I'm going to have to detain you," The male officer said as he reached for Mary. "Now, you're not under-"

As soon as the officer's hand touched Mary's arm, her own hand whipped around, grabbing the officer's wrist.
"Ow! Hey, leggo! Let go!" The officer said, pulling away. But the Body had the officer's wrist in a vice-like grip, and Mary was pulled clumsily along, grabbing her wrist with her free hand and trying to pull it off.
"Let go!" The officer yelled.
"I can't!" Mary pleaded, trying to pull against herself, leaving her in a bizarre tug of war with the officer.
"Leggo or I'm gonna pepper spray ya!" The officer said. "Leggo!" He repeated.
"I'm trying!" Mary pleaded, trying to wrench her hand free of its grip.
The male officer's partner came around Mary's side, spraying her in the face with her pepper spray, but it might as well have been water for how much Mary reacted to it, causing her to blink briefly but causing no further irritation.
"Spray her!" The male officer yelled as he pulled bakwards, slamming against the wall and dragging Mary along with him.
"I am!" The female officer yelled back. "It's not working!"
"Let go!" The officer yelled again as Mary pulled against him. "Quit resistin'!"
"I'm trying!" Mary pleaded. "Please, you've got to stop!"
"You stop!" The female officer said as she sprayed Mary again.
"I can't!" Mary yelled. "Please, get out of here!"
"LET GO!" The Male officer yelled again, finally drawing his nightstick with his free hand and smacking it against Mary's forearm. Mary could feel the impacts; the officer was obviously swinging with all his might. But it was like the impact didn't *mean* anything to the Flesh, like it had just turned all its nerve endings off. She felt a crack against the back of her skull, and dimly realized the female officer was using her nightstick as well. she jabbed the end of it into Mary's ribs, but Mary's attention was now focused solely on holding back the Body, its howls drowning out any protests she could make, her suppression of its murderous instincts accomplished solely through sheer force of will.
"Taze her!" managed to pierce through her mental maelstrom, and Mary snapped back into the present, the male officer's shoe against her face as he lay back on the couch.
"But it'll get you too!" the female cop yelled as she continued to beat ineffectually against Mary with her nightstick.
"I don't care, just do it!" the male officer said.
"No, wait!" Mary managed to get out before she felt the needles pierce her back and sixty thousand volts charged through the Flesh.

The Body let out a mighty roar, not just in Mary's mind but through her mouth, spinning and throwing the male officer against the opposite wall. She felt her arms change into tentacles as she whipped around, the nearest snaring the female officer's neck and injecting her with so much transformative venom she all but melted into tentacles on the spot, the writhing green mass snaking its way out of her clothes even as Mary continued her spin, her other tentacle lashing around the male officer's leg, piercing the cotton uniform effortlessly. The male officer screamed briefly as his leg swelled and disintegrated before passing out, his remaining mass disentangling into tentacles and leaving two empy police uniforms on the ground.

Mary sunk to her knees, sobbing furiously. She'd killed. She'd killed two policemen. What was she going to do? Where could she go?
"Officer Ramsey, is the suspect in custody? Officer Ramsey? Come in officer Ramsey, please respond!"
Mary looked at the squaking radio still clipped to the shoulder of the empty uniform.
Officer down, she thought. They're going to send more.

Mary rose to her feet, the newly-created mat of tentacles following behind her as she walked to the door, eating the officers' uniforms as they went. Mary went outside and saw the police cruiser parked in front of her apartment. Inside, the radio was blaring out the apartment complex's address, and in the distance her improved ears could hear sirens.

Mary looked at the cruiser. They're sending more, Mary thought. They're going to keep sending more. It's only going to get worse from here.
"I need a way to defend myself..." She said as she approached the rear of the cruiser, claws growing from her hands.

[kaiyotea]

Originally Posted by SoylentOrange

Mary wandered across the parking lot, the black asphalt stained glossy by the morning's dew. The sun wasn't really out yet, not for the pacific northwest anyways, but it was bright enough to be pleasant. Mary saw a pair of birds flying through the sky and thought about going back into the forest, but with the Body's incessant needs for more genetic material it was beginning to feel like work. No, what she needed was some human contact. Not anyone too familiar with her, but just to be around faces that weren't green and voices that didn't come from inside her head.

...

Everybody is doing favors in this chapter. Mary buys a fruit pie for Katie and The Body amplifies Mary's senses beyond human capacity. It's the little things.

Mary's desperation for a slice of normalcy is turned on its head when the body feeds on a normally less than appetizing hot dog.

It seems that Mary's relationship with The Body is dynamic. The Body can be in control if Mary isn't paying attention but Mary can exert control over The Body, even in high stress situations if she concentrates hard enough.

Hey, and Mary actually has a good idea about the CDC inquiries! But sadly she is interrupted by those pesky questions about where that repairman went...

The inhumanity of Mary is driven home in small ways by not having any physical reactions to mental stress and nervousness. She probably could have used that to her advantage in the interview if she hadn't been so preoccupied with keeping The Body from murdering the two officers on the spot.

The officers did seem a little too eager. They apparently were planning to take her in before they talked to her. I wonder what they were going to charge her with?

But the confrontation revealed several things. That electricity can hurt The Body and just how dangerous it can be in combat. Once the Taser came out The Body dispatched them in seconds. And now there are more on the way. Mary could win in a confrontation but that will only escalate matters. I wonder if she could assume the form of one of the officers and call in a response to head off the backup and then ditch the cruiser somewhere. Things seem to be spiraling out of control at the moment and I hope Mary can calm things down. I am hoping for a lot more story before we reach the climax.

And something makes me suspect that The Body may not trust Mary as much now, with her trying to stop it from killing the "predators".

Will Mary tell Katie about the encounter when she gets back? This is of course assuming that there isn't a phalanx of police cruisers parked outside when she returns to clue her that something is wrong.

[SoylentOrange]

Wow! Thanks for all the great comments.

Yeah, things are getting hairy, and they'll get worse before they get better. Everyone's flying blind on this one, trying to figure out what's happening and why.

Stay tuned!

[SoylentOrange]

Kaiyotea's comments inspired me, so I pushed through and finished the next chapter. Here you go!
===================================

Katie frowned as she pulled into her apartment complex, seeing the red and blue lights of a police car illuminating the stucco walls of the surrounding buildings. She hoped nobody had gotten seriously hurt. She made her way past the front parking lot, seeing that there were lots of lights; something really serious must have happened.
It wasn't until she rounded the corner into the rear parking lot and saw the vehicles all clustered around her and Mary's building that her heart dropped into her stomach. Katie pulled her car into the first available spot and just stared out her window. They were all crowded around their end of the building, that was for sure. It looked to be four cop cars, and... a SWAT van?
"Good God, sister, what did you do?" Katie asked as she opened her purse and rummaged for her cell phone. She dialed both her number and Mary's, but neither phone even rang, it just gave a "your call cannot be completed as dialed" message. Katie sighed and leaned back in the seat, wondering what she could do. Could she wait it out, maybe check into a hotel? Only for a day or two at most; once she changed back into boobzilla Mary was pretty much the only person who wouldn't run screaming from her. Katie looked at the steering wheel and held her arms up in front of her, realizing that with her monstrous bosom's girth she probably wouldn't even be able to reach the wheel.
"Hrrrraagh..." Katie muttered as she got out of her car, shutting the door softly so as to not attract any attention. How was she going to get into Mary's with the police in front of it? All the doors and windows were front-facing. But then again, Katie thought as she walked between the two buildings, those tentacles were pretty strong- maybe Mary could make her a door or something.

Katie edged her way behind their apartment building, glad to get off the concrete where her heels made a rather conspicuous clicking. She amde her way back across the rear of the building, passing the fist two units before freezing at a man's barked orders. Katie spun to see a man in a bulletproof vest, a shotgun against his shoulder and leveled at her.
"Hands above your head!" The officer barked as he stood near the tree line, and Katie dropped her purse to the ground and raised her hands high.
"Dispatch, got an african-american woman around back of the suspect's complex, please advise," He said into his shoulder-mounted walkie-talkie. The radio sqwaked and some garbled words came out, that rapid-fire stacatto of acronyms and police codes that only Police could seemingly make heads or tails of, though Katie was able to make out the words "detain" and "lieutenant."
"Ten-four, dispatch," The officer said, never taking his eyes off her. "Turn around and get down on your knees!" He yelled, and Katie quickly complied, wodering for the hundredth time what on earth Mary had done to earn this kind of reaction. She worried about what the Body could have done had it taken complete control of Mary; she'd seen Mary at a rather huge size, and given the Flesh's indestructible nature there wasn't a whole lot they could probably do to her.
"Lay down with your hands behind your head!" The officer barked again, and Katie complied, hearing the pine needles crunch under the foosteps of the officer as he approached. Katie was so concerned with Mary that she didn't even protest the indignity of being handcuffed; all she wanted to do was make sure Mary was okay. The police couldn't hurt her, of that she was nearly certain, but the Body, if it somehow took over...
"So is there anything left of you in there? Where's 'Mary'?" Katie heard in her head, fretting about what the answer was now.
"What'cha got?" A voice from her right said, and Katie turned her head to see another officer with a shotgun coming down the treeline towards them.
"Someone sneaking around to the back of the suspect's apartment," The first officer said as he go up off of Katie's back. "Gonna take her to the lieutenant."
"Rodger," The second officer said. "Need help getting her up?"
"Sure, take an arm," The first officer said, transferring his weapon to his other hand. Katie's heart raced as she wound up with the barrel of a twelve-gauge pointing at her spine, but remained still.
"We're gonna pick you up now, all right?" The first officer said. "Get your feet under you."

Katie pulled her legs up to her stomach as the officers hoisted her to her feet, her ankle rolling sligthly as one of her heels slipped off, but the officer on her right caught her before she could slip all the way down.
"...Can you get my purse?" She asked.
"Sure," The second officer said, bending down and snatching her purse up by the straps. They led Katie back around to the parking lot, marching her staight past the police cordon and to the largest knot of officers. Katie saw narly a dozen bulletproof-vest-wearing uniformed officers lined up looking at the apartment uneasily, and another knot of them gathered around the side door of the large van.Poking out above the sea of navy blue uniforms was a single plainclothes officer, wearing a tan suit and a green tie, talking into a telephone whose cord ran back inside the van.
"...and I'm telling you, I don't *care* what protocols or forms you have to go through, just *do* it. There are lives on the line here, if she wanted to talk to Mars I'd have you patch me through to NASA! What? ...Yes, I'll hold."
Katie was brought before the man on the phone, who cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and looked at the first officer. "Who's this?" He asked.
"Caught her creeping around the suspect's place," The officer replied.
"What's your story?" The lieutenant said, more bored than anything else but still visibly on edge. Katie wondered how long he'd been here.
"I-I'm just trying to get back to my apartment," Katie said.
"Got ID on her?" He asked the second officer, who was rummaging through Katie's purse.
"Wallet," The officer replied, handing the lieuteant Katie's wallet as he emptied KAtie's purse an item at a time onto the trunk of a cruiser. The lieutenant flipped the wallet open, finding her driver's license and reading it. He pulled back a bit, looking slightly perplexed, his eyes darting to Katie's.
"Katie Green?" He asked.
"Yes?" Katie replied, hoping it was the right answer.
"Well, you've just become a lot more- Yes, this is lieutenant Jefferies," he said, cutting off in mid-sentance to continue his phone conversation. "Uh huh. Right. Who is that, again?" He asked, looking from his the notepad he had in a shelf in the van to Katie and back. "Take her cuffs off," He whispered to the first officer, and he got his key out and started to work on Katie's cuffs.
"Yes, fine, have them call as soon as possible," He said, pulling a cell phone out of his pocket and flipping it open. As he gave the number to call, Katie rubbed her wrists, glad to be free of them. The lieutenant shut his cell phone and handed it to katie, who for her part just stared at it before looking back up at the Lieutenant. The lieutenant shook the phone at Katie twice, his eyes firey for a split second as he talked on the phone. Katie took the phone and held it cupped in her hands, not sure what she was supposed to do with it.

The lieutenant finally hung up with the phone and walked to the line of police cars, picking up a bullhorn off the hood of one of the cruisers. "Okay, Mary, we've got someone from the CDC on the line. And Katie's here, too, she's gonna bring you the phone!"
Katie's mouth popped open as she looked at her apartment, surprised to hear Mary's voice come out of it.
"Katie? She's here?" her voice yelled out, though slightly muffled and indistinct.
"She's right here, and we're gonna send her right over, but first we need you to send out one of our officers," The lieutenant said. "We've been very patient."
"How do I know Katie's really here?" Mary yelled back.
"She's right here next to me," The lieutenant said. "Just look out your window."
"No, bring her to the door!"
"We can't do that until we know our officers are safe..." The Lieutenant said.
"Fine, just bring her close! If I can see her through the peep-hole, I'll send out an officer!"
The lieutenant dropped the bullhorn and put a hand to his face, his breath fogging in the cool evening air.
"Any luck?" He asked one of the officers standing next to him.
"Nothing," He replied. "Whatever that green stuff is we can't get through it. "The only way we're getting in there is if she lets us."
"What *is* that stuff?" The lieutenant fumed, looking at Katie as if only just noticing she was still there.
"Call's gonna come any minute," he said, looking at his watch. "Okay, you and Nguyen go with her to the door. Try and hang back as far as possible, but do whatever it takes to get that door open." He stared hard at Katie. "And *you*, you do whatever you can to help. If someone dies in there because you try to be cute I'll see to it you're locked away for life." The two officers took positions behind each of Katie's shoulders, and she swallowed hard.
"Go!" The lieutenant hissed.
Katie began to slowly walk towards the apartment, the two SWAT members' submachine guns held beside her. Her awkward one-heeled gait made the journey all the more intimidating, and as she approached the door, the ringing of the cell phone startled her enough to make her nearly drop it.
"Let it ring," Nguyen whispered, never taking his eyes off the front door. "He'll stay on until she picks it up."
Katie nodded and continued on, until the other SWAT member clamped his hand on Katie's shoulder.
"That's far enough," He said. "Call her."
"M-Mary?" Katie called out, her voice squeaking from nervousness. "Mary, honey? You there?"
"Katie?" Mary called out. "Is that you?"
"Yeah, it's me, honey," Katie replied. "Can, uh, can you come to the door? The phone's ringing. I think it's the CDC."
There was no response. Katie looked at the front door, noticing that there were a couple round indentations around the lock, like the door had been pulverized but it hadn't moved an inch.
The constant ringing of the cell phone amid a sea of silence caused Katie to sweat, not knowing what would happen or even what Mary would look like if and when she opened the door.

The door broke into chunks, the sound barely registering before Katie saw a surging mass of tentacles reaching for her, entwining her, and pulling her bodily towards the apartment. She barely heard a "The hell?!" from one of the SWAT members as they dove out of the way, and then she was airborne, thrown onto a mat of green tentacles as the doorway filled again, the individual pieces of door joined back together and sealed tight until it was indistinguishable from the rest of the wall of green tentacles surrounding her.
"M-Mary?" Katie asked as she got to her feet, looking around at what used to be her apartment. What used to be *an* apartment.
"Oh my God, Katie, I'm so glad you're here!" Mary's voice came, though Katie could not see Mary. She had a slight sense of vertigo as she stood there, as the entire room seemed to be pulsating slightly, the floors and walls writhing in a sickening manner.
"Mary?" Katie asked. "Mary, where are you? What the hell happened?"
"I'm right here," Mary replied, and Katie saw a lump of tentacles racing across the ground, coming to the wall and climbing up it without so much as slowing down. It reminded Katie strangely of Bugs Bunny burrowing through the ground, the way the lump seemed to travel under the mat of tentacles without ever slowing down or actually displacing anything.
"Here, where?" Katie pleaded. "It sounds like the whole room is talking!"
The lump paused as it made its way across the ceiling. "Oh... sorry," It said as it began to swell and drip down from the ceiling. It detatched from the ceiling and fell, something vaguely Mary-shaped rising and shaping from the lump on the floor. "I'm still getting used to this."
Katie stared agog at Mary. Her torso was more or less intact, save for the rather large breasts- all four of them- and the four arms coming from her sides. Her actual arms were only humanoid until the elbows, after which they split into three drooping tentacles. Her legs, such as they were, looked like a tangle of creeping ivy, a writhing trunk of flesh. Perhaps most disquieting was her face, though- without mouth, ears, or nose, the only feature on her was her eyes, a pair of pale green orbs looking at her forlornly.
"What the-" Katie started, before Mary darted forward and wrapped herself around Katie, her tentacles twining the two of them together tightly. Katie's first reaction was to pull away, but Mary had wrapped her so tightly she could barely get her hands around to Mary's back.
"Oh, Katie, I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do!" Mary yelled, though the question of how she was talking without a mouth passed by Katie without thought, the least disturbing question in a sea of insanity.
"Mary, Mary!" Katie yelled, trying to keep her cool. "What. Happened!" She wriggled her shoulders, trying to get some slack in the tentacle bindings that surrounded her. "And turn human for God's sake, you're freaking me out."
"Oh..." Mary said, withdrawing from Katie and looking down at herself. "I thought I... um, nevermind..." She said as she continued her metamorphosis, her skin turning back into something flesh-colored and her features assembling themselves into something humanoid. "...Is this okay?" She asked.
Katie cocked her head to the side, her brow furrowing. It looked Mary-like, but it was off slightly, her cheekbones a little too pronounced, ber breasts a little too large, her skin a little more tan than normal. "'Okay'?" Katie repeated. "Mary... you're supposed to look like you."
"And this isn't it?" Mary asked, quietly.
Katie blinked and kind of shook her head. "You don't know...?"
"I, uh... kinda forgot..."
"Katie shook her head again. "Honey, what happened here?"

Mary related her meeting with the police, Shandra's kicking, and her subsequent eating the two officers.
"I went out there, and I saw the car, and I heard the radio talking about them, and then I ate it, I just *ate* it, and I went inside and I ate and ate and ate and at some point I just sorta... felt weird."
"Weird?" Katie asked, shaking her head.
"I just, sorta, kept eating, and growing, and the tentacles kept pouring out of me, and they were eating, and at some point everything just sorta got fuzzy, and I wasn't me anymore, I was... everything. I didn't have eyes, or hands, I was just... everywhere."
"Did you really eat... everything?" Katie asked. "Where's Shandra?"
"Oh, *her*," Mary sneered, and Katie saw her teeth lengthen into fangs. "Yeah, she's up there," She said, looking to the writhing ceiling. Katie looked up as well, and gasped as she saw Shandra lowered through the ceiling. Shandra looked as though she'd been crucified by the tentacles, her feet bound together and her wrists lashed to the ceiling. Tentacles held her at her waist and he shoulders, letting her pendulous breasts and gravid belly hand free. Two final tentacles crossed over her mouth and her eyes, leaving her completely immobilized and blind to the world.
"Mary-"
"Don't even think about saying anything on her behalf," Mary said, snapping her gaze down to Katie. "Those two police officers are dead because of her. Her!"
"Mary, calm down, you're hulking out again," Katie said, backing away and putting up her hands.
Mary stopped, looked down at herself, and sighed, reverting back to her almost-Mary form, though the color of her eyes was wrong this time.
"Did- did you eat everything in my room?" Katie asked.
Mary thought for a second. "No, I was too concerned with sealing up the doors and windows. I think there's still a chunk of your room that's clean."
Katie went down the little hallway between her bedroom and bathroom, the corridor of tentacles inspiring a bit of claustrophobia. She edged into her bedroom, which was dimly lit by a kind of phosphoresence radiating off the tentacles on the ceiling. Her bed, her closet, and most of the other fixtures in her room were in the process of being devoured, but her desk remained unmolested, an oasis of normalcy in the maze of tentacles. Katie gingerly stepped off the tentacles, opening the drawer of her desk and pulling out a small frame.
"Here, Mary," She said, handing her the picture. "That's you, remember? That's the *real* you." It was a picture of her and Mary at orientation week, the two of them looking anxious to get started in their careers.
Mary held the picture, her brow furrowing slightly. Gradually, she returned to her old self, every feature the right size and every pigment the right color. Mary let out a shuddering breath and sunk down to the ground, leaning her back against the wall of tentacles.
"What're we gonna do, Katie?" Mary asked, looking up at her friend.
Katie just shook her head at her friend, pulling her desk chair out behind her and sitting down. "I don't have the slightest idea, honey. I mean, I know they teach us to take in new information and process it quickly, you know, figuring out the best angle for a cross, all of that, but this... this is just..." Katie went to lean her elbow on her desk, but jerked back when she set it on top of the fruit pie Mary had gotten her.
"Where-? I don't remember this being here," she mumbled as she pushed it aside.
Mary scoffed. "I got it for you," She said. "That's why I was in here when the police showed up."
Katie looked from Mary to the pie and back again.
"It was meant to be a surprise," Mary said, managing a bitter smile. "A little apology gift for yesterday."
Katie snorted and shook her head. After staring at her lap for a few seconds, she took the fruit pie and opened it.
"You like it?" Mary asked as Katie took a bite.
"Cherry's my favorite, but apple's good, too," She said, managing a weak smile. "Thanks, though."
Mary got to her feet, looking off into the air. "They're trying to get in," she said.
"Where?" Katie asked, whipping her head around so fast a bit of pastry crust flew off her lips.
"The front door," Mary said. "Again."
"What're we gonna do?" Katie asked, standing up.
"...You remember what professor Watson told us about pleas?" Mary said. "She told us, if you manage to convince opposing counsel they can't win, even if they probably can, then you're already halfway there. Even if it goes to trial, if you've convinced them to go in thinking they can't win, they probably won't."
"Yeah...?" Katie asked, a brow arching. "So? What are you planning to do?"
"I'm going to convince them they can't win," Mary said as she made her way back to the front room. "Hopefully I can get them to leave without doing anything stupid."
"Stupid?" Katie echoed.
"Get themselves kiled," Mary said as she walked into the wall of tentacles, passing through the writhing mass as she began to change.

When Mary emerged from the other side, her tentacles finally eating through the outer walls, she was fully embracing one of the "predator" forms the Body had tried to force on her before. Letting it come out fully, she was amazed at the sheer destructive capability she felt welling up inside of her, muscles thickening and bulging with cords of what felt like liquid steel, her hide becoming like reinfocred kevlar, fingernails growing out to be like scythe-blades dangling from her hands. The gathered police and SWAT officers took a few seconds to even register what she was, a stunned confusion stopping all sound save the usual chirping of birds in the forest. Mary walked slowly towards the line of police cars, making her intent obvious but giving them enough time to get scared.
"These prey should be easy to consume," The Body said. "We are pleased you are finally using a more appropriate form."
"I'm not going to kill them," Mary replied. "I'm going to scare them away."
"What?" The Body asked, confused. "Why would you not consume them? Your lair grows hungry, it must feed."
"You saw how consuming two of them brought this many more?" Mary asked. "If we consume these, then that many more will come, and stronger ones after them. We could not hope to consume all of them at once, they would overwhelm us."
"But if we convince them to flee, they will not return?" The Body asked.
"Yeah, and then we can eat all we want somewhere safer. Remember the supermarket?"
"Oh yes, we do, very much so," The Body said eagerly. Mary was certain that if it had a mouth the Body would be saivating at the thought of the grocery store and all the food inside it.
"So let me do this my way, and I'll get you some yummy treats from the store."
"We eagerly await the fleeing of these troubleome prey, then," The Body said, and was silent.

"The hell is that?!" One of the police officers finally yelled out, looking around.
"Fuck should I know?" Another officer said. The SWAT officers were a little more organized, closing in to a defensive firing squad behind one of the vehicles.
"It's coming this way..." One of the SWAT officers said, looking side to side to check on the locations of the rest of their team. "Orders, sir?"
The SWAT commander just shook his head, mouth agape. Mary continued walking, edging closer and closer to the police with every step.
"Orders??" The officer yelled again, looking over his shoulder. Mary roared and swiped at the ground with her claws, the long talons digging furrows in the asphalt and sending a shower of small rocks clanking against the cars and riot shields.
"Fire! Fire! Open fire!" the commander yelled, and Mary was instantly peppered with buckshot and bullets, her huge, hulking form making for a nearly impossible to miss backstop.
"They're bouncing off!" One of the SWAT shooters yelled as their small sub-machinegun bullets impacted against Mary's hide, denting the skin in but not penetrating. "That damn thing is bulletproof!"
Mary paused, thinking quickly. If they couldn't penetrate her, then they'd just bring bigger guns, which meant the army, which was bad. She needed to thin her hide a little, so the bullets would pass into her. As soon as she had given the mental command, her body jerked from the force of the bullets penetrating her flesh, a hundred tiny holes in the span of a few seconds.
"No it isn't!" One of the other offiers shouted. "Keep shooting!"
Mary roared again, now within maybe twenty yards of the phalanx of police vehicles. A few of the officers had backed up from their firing line, still shooting but not wanting to be the one closest to Mary when she got there. For her part, Mary was eating the bullets right after they entered her body, the wounds closing within seconds. She figured one more show of force would be enou-

Mary's vision spun and fragmmented as the sharpshooter's bullet entered the side of her head just below her left temple, her head jerking sideways as the bullet fragmented inside her head, blowing one of her horns off the opposite side as the exit wound spilled green flesh and viscera over the pavement. Stunned, Mary stumbled forward a step and fell over, her half-destroyed face impacting on the ground and leaving her confused. For a second, everything went quiet again. The raucous din of gunshots ceased, a few s\dogs barking their protest at all the sudden noise echoing from far away. Mary felt her face starting to re-form, but stopped it, a moment of dramatic inspiration hitting her. Just as the police began to cheer and clap, Mary got her arms underneath her and pushed herself up to one knee, causing the police, some of whom had begnn to wander over to her 'corpse', to scatter back to their cruisers. Mary looked at the line of terrified officers with her one good eye as she allowed her face to reform, then roared again before leaping the remaiing fifteen yards from where she stood to the top of the nearest police car, caving in the roof as she landed on it. Finally, the desired effect; even the SWAT team broke ranks and fled down the parking lot away from Mary. Mary hardened her skin again; after that stunt with the sniper, she had made her point, and didnn't want to have to deal with re-forming chunks of herself anymore. She jumped down off the cruiser, looking back to make sure the police were still retreating, and walked around to the hood of the cruiser. Taking one claw to the hood, she carved the letters "CDC" into the metal, then walked back to the apartment, absorbing the remnants of her head that had been blown onto the lot back into her as she went.
"So now feeding will be easier, yes?" The Body asked as Mary approached the writhing green wall that used to be the front of her apartment.
"In a manner of speaking," Mary sighed as she passed through the wall and begain waiting for the inevitable response.