Chapter 42
42
The surviving rippers dragged themselves to the foot of his body swathe within which his nine brains swam about like fruit pieces in jelly—very bloody fruit pieces. He was still wondering if one could have too many brains. Were there drawbacks? Each one he’d added made his intelligence scramble to a new peak, made his thoughts faster, gave him more data to use in his attack on the remaining humans below. The only problem so far was that he’d become slower to move.
A bag of brains.
One of them had popped out that thought. He was not sure which it was as they’d merged in a way. Still separate, but their thoughts came from nowhere in particular.
A tissue, a tissue, we all fall down.
Which one was that? He figuratively scowled then did a search, and none of them appeared to be the culprit. Some were not all there in the head and were probably damaged. He should do an inventory, somehow, and discard the sillier ones. When he’d had fewer it had been easier to tell them apart.
But back to the problem at hand. Lazily he dragged his fat tentacles about him, drawing random squiggles through the dust, dirt, and human remains that clotted and clogged this Top story. The sun blazed down upon the glorious landscape. Fewer and fewer humans dwelled, and the Ghoul Lords grew fatter. All around him the squat domes of blossoming queens prodded the sky, almost ready to erupt.
He especially had grown fatter. Half his genetic material had been destroyed, but he’d proved he could flourish nevertheless.
The rippers had brought him enough information of their foray into humanland that he could tell the beasters were located in the lower parts of the buildings and somewhat distant horizontally also. He would shift his body bulk to above their current location. The problem became, what to do about the depths they had travelled to? He would not venture that deep, and his skinsuit followers would probably not either.
Though he’d been considering rewarding some of the best followers with a brain or two, that would reveal his methods. He was loath to show the other Ghoul Lords how humans could be more than food, more than temporary brain boosts.
They were RAM to his ROM.
They were beautiful new drawers to put files in. Whole alphabetized filing cabinets. New beads on the abacus.
So many metaphors, so little time.
The queens would launch in a few months, and he wanted this revenge of his done . Before that happened, he wanted to taste her bones, her blood, her gristle, listen to her squeals as he drove his tentacles inside her cunt, her brain, and her stomach, so he could wriggle them about and mush her internal organs. Nom nom nom. He also had ideas about inveigling himself into the queue as a donor to a queen.
Maybe more and better brains, much smarter brains, would let him put the dots on the eyes of that plan?
More brains, yes, but whose? How did one tell how smart they were before dissecting them from their human?
One of those he’d already caught and engulfed chose to interrupt his thoughts. It postulated this:
If the humans are residing too low, then they must be attracted higher. Any fisherman worth his rod knows how to draw a fish toward his hook. Make a pretty lure, of course, and trawl the depths.
Avidex slid his triangular teeth together in a gruesome approximation of a human smile.
Oh yesss.