Chapter 29 Mrs. Smith
Mrs. Smith
As Mrs. Smith sank, her brain was flooded with memories.
The sublime ecstasy of biting into the Pure Ones. The sheer joy of sinking her teeth and claws into their fragile tissue.
Their blood filling her mouth. The shock waves of power surging through her body after swallowing the flesh of the ninth Pure
One. The long-awaited feeling of satiation.
Her blissful stupor hadn’t lasted long. The orb of red light from the man’s gun had jolted her awake. The humans on the rubber
boat had cut her.
The images in her head faded. All that was left was rage. And the sharp, stabbing pain in her skull.
The pain.
She’d never felt anything like it. Had never been wounded in this way. Not in all her centuries.
The pain swelled like a wave. Hot, searing, clawing.
She wanted to crawl out of her own body like a crab seeking a new shell. She wanted to drift weightlessly in the current.
She was tired. So very tired.
She was dying.
Her world was dying.
For a moment, the pain loosened its grip and memories rushed in like a breaking wave. A kaleidoscope of shifting images from a thousand years of life. Long-extinct creatures swimming through unspoiled oceans. The images swirled around and around like a whirlpool until they became shapeless blurs.
As Mrs. Smith sank, and the blackness closed in, a single thought sparked in her brain.
Survive.
The thought was a pinprick of light. Not the glaring light of the sun, but the ethereal blue of the light that existed miles
below the surface. The light of the ocean’s heart.
The will to endure pushed the darkness back. It burned through Mrs. Smith’s newly rejuvenated body, directing her synapses
to fire. Her limbs, acting autonomously, pulled out the spikes lodged in her flesh.
The pain was a supernova inside her skull. She was completely blinded by it. Blood streamed out of her mouth.
She kept sinking.
When her back came to rest on the sandy bottom, the eels gathered around her. They grazed her skin with theirs, agitated by
her stillness and by the blood ribboning from her mouth. In an effort to rouse her, they nipped her arms, wound themselves
through her snakelike hair, and nuzzled her ruined face.
They felt the Mother’s life ebbing away.
They also felt the vibrations of many engines above them. They saw lights trying to penetrate the water. They smelled the
taint of gasoline.
The eels knew danger was coming, but they didn’t flee. They wouldn’t leave the Mother, not while she still lived.
These creatures of the dark sensed the spark of light within her chest. The drumbeat of that ancient heart. They would stay
with her until the beat grew louder. Or until it fell silent.
Far below the swarm of boats, the eels blanketed Mrs. Smith’s body with their bodies. From above, they were indistinguishable from the dark water. They were a shield made of flesh and shadow.
In the shadows, they would wait.