The Midnight Clearing

The Midnight Clearing

There was only one car on the Walton Interstate that balmy Sunday night. With only a pair of dim, failing headlights to guide it, the vehicle tunneled its way through the lofty trees that arced overhead, for the area was thickly wooded and sparsely populated.

An abundance of displaced leaves and fallen limbs still criss-crossed the roads from the earlier cloudburst. It was August so such storms were to be expected, especially in the New England region, but this was one of those storms that came and went quickly, brutally ravaging the rural areas before disappearing to the east and out over the ocean.

Laura sighed to herself and surveyed the road ahead. Beside her, Jamie sleepily navigated her way through the ruination the thunderstorm left in its wake, occasionally swerving into the other lane to avoid a downed limb. The wreckage was not entirely unmerited, however—it provided a sort of obstacle course for Jamie to focus on while she drove, and the constant impediments ensured that she’d not be falling asleep at the wheel.

The trees were not the only things damaged by the thunderstorm. The girls’ schedule for the afternoon had been interrupted as well. Laura had spent the prior evening at Jamie’s house, planning a slumber party for subsequent Friday or Saturday night. They’d narrowed the list down to thirteen girls—excluding she and Laura—earlier that afternoon, and had originally planned to make this drive back to Laura’s earlier in the afternoon. As luck would have it, however, the storm came in over Vermont and crossed the border, and before the girls could leave Jamie’s, the winds became too fierce and it began to hail. The hail was fairly short-lived, but did the majority of the damage, and Jamie’s mother didn’t want them driving around in those conditions.

So here they were, just shy of midnight, and both of them were absolutely exhausted. Friday night had been spent celebrating their graduation from High School, and sleep hadn’t been a priority the night before. Neither had realized how truly wiped they both were until they began this journey. They’d chatted almost constantly for the first half-hour, but since then a quiet fell over both of them. She hoped that Jamie would be okay during her return home.

“What’s that?” Jamie said, interrupting Laura’s thoughts. Following her gaze, Laura looked again to the stretch of road before the car, and when her eyes focused she realized what Jamie was referring to. Evidently the storm hadn’t shown any sympathy for this area, either: an enormous oak tree had fallen across the road, completely blocking the route.

Jamie pulled the car to a gradual halt and set the parking break. As they exited the car and investigated, it quickly became apparent that their progress would be impeded for quite some time. The tree had been uprooted from its home bordering the highway, and fallen perpendicularly across the lanes, its once-lofty branches scratching at the opposite tree line. By no means would a pair of teenage girls be able to do a thing about it.

This time, it was Laura’s turn to sigh, and looked at Jamie, examining her expression in the headlights. A pair of thick, swollen bags had formed beneath her bloodshot eyes, and her head seemed to sway slightly as she stood there. For the umpteenth time since their ride began, Laura wished that they’d just spent the night at Jamie’s; already she’d been planning on forcing her to sleep in the guest room once they got to Laura’s house. Now neither option seemed available; the blockade would be going nowhere until crews arrived the following morning to dispose of it. The Walton Interstate was infrequently used, and there were other routes they could take—but those would require extensive backtracking just to get to. Frankly it would be easier just to return to Jamie’s, but at this point, even that seemed dangerous.

Jamie retreated to her car and leaned against the hood, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Ohhh, my fucking GOD.”

Laura could relate. She peered through the rustling branches, hoping to make out any signs of civilization in the miles beyond. To her surprise, she could make out a tiny flickering halogen light bulb about a quarter mile down the road. She knew there were twenty-four hour fill-up stations toward the outskirts of town; perhaps this was one of them.

Swallowing hard, Laura looked over Jamie’s apparel. Of the pair, Jamie was the flirtatious one, and her attire was always donned with the intent to draw attention. A pair of denim cutoffs hugged her petite bum seductively, and with the exception of the fabric crawling up between her thighs, the pants left little to the imagination in regards to her toned, tanned legs. Her shirt was just as scant, a white noodle-strap that exposed her arms in their entirety, and revealed her firm midriff all the way up to her ribcage.

In other words, traveling with this blond bombshell would probably draw the wrong kinds of attention. What lay beyond the branches of the fallen tree was not the cocky High School jocks to which they both were accustomed. To top it all off, Jamie’s footwear consisted of nothing more than a pair of thin flip-flops. If her feet didn’t give out on her halfway there, then their approach would be much too audible. Walking barefoot would only give Jamie the ‘girl next door’ appearance, which was precisely what Laura wanted to avoid.

“I have an idea,” Laura said finally, after a lengthy silence. “You wait here, in the car. Lock the doors. I’ll walk into town and see if I can’t find someone to help us.”

Jamie stared at Laura as though she’d sprouted another head. “Are you crazy? What happens if someone sees you? Like, a horny old truck driver or something?”

Laura suppressed an amused smile. “What happens if a horny old truck driver sees a pair of stranded girls sitting in a car on the side of the road?”

“We aren’t stranded,” Jamie retorted, flipping a rogue lock of blond hair over her shoulder. “I’ll just drive us back to my house. It’ll be okay.”

“…Until we crash on the side of the road when you fall asleep at the wheel. I don’t think so, Jamie. Trust me, I’ll be fine.” As to illustrate her point, Laura collected her hair into a ponytail, and tucked it under the collar of her shirt. “There. Now I look like a boy, right?”

Jamie studied her for a moment, biting her lip. She was either trying not to giggle, or trying to convince herself that Laura did, indeed, look like a boy. “All the boys I know have breasts…” she opined finally. Laura frowned.

“I’ll say they’re implants.”

“And if he gets in your pants?”

“I’ll sprout a penis.” This time, Jamie giggled, the first she’d heard since they came across the fallen tree. “Like I said, I’ll be fine. I can see some lights just a little ways down the road. We can’t be that far from town.”

Jamie breathed heavily and shrugged. “Well…I guess so. Just as long as you promise to come back for me.”

“I will,” Laura reassured her, turning on her heel and moving to circumvent the tree’s exposed roots. “Just sit tight.”

***

The road was considerably darker than Laura first anticipated. Jamie didn’t help matters much; shortly after Laura departed, what little illumination the car’s headlights provided was taken away when Jamie turned the car around. Laura’s heart leapt into her throat for a moment—was Jamie leaving her out here, without anywhere to which she could retreat, if something did happen?

But no, she was just turning the car around, so it faced the stretch of road they’d already traveled. The sentiment that Laura had undertaken this quest with the need for a getaway driver didn’t bode well, but that was Jamie’s problem. This town had been Laura’s home since birth; they didn’t have things like perverts and rapists here.

Still, the journey wracked her nerves, but she was making good time. Despite her self-assurances, Laura was still glad that Jamie hadn’t joined her. The constant companionship of her sneakers plodding against the pavement, echoing throughout the tree-tunnel with every step, was enough to unnerve her. Hearing Jamie’s flip-flops slapping against the soles of her feet probably would have driven her nuts.

As the car disappeared in the distance, and the road snaked to the left, Laura sped her gait. There were things in the woods, spooky things—the incessant songs of crickets, the hooting of curious owls. Not to mention the occasional skittering of a squirrel or chipmunk through the underbrush. She wondered if there weren’t coyotes or wolves in the area; or any other predator she hadn’t accounted for when she volunteered for this midnight stroll.

Only a few minutes more, and Laura was alone—at least, in human terms. She couldn’t see Jamie’s car anymore, but she could discern the gas station in the distance. About half the ground between it and Jamie had been covered.

But she was definitely getting nervous. Plagued by an air of immanency, Laura increased her pace to a steady jog, careful to pace herself. The shuffling of her legs against her jeans was infuriating, and coupled with the grating of her forearms against her t-shirt; she couldn’t shake the feeling of building paranoia. More than once she cast a furtive glance over her shoulder, only to find that the road was too dark to discern anyone.

And then, breathing heavily, Laura came to a stop. The air was black but her eyes were wide. Something crossed the road in front of her. She guessed it to be about knee-height, with an awkward, swaying gait. It was silhouetted, and she’d have missed it entirely, were it not for a peculiar glimmer flashing across her eyes. She caught the creature’s skin against the distant halogen light, and it seemed to have multiple legs—eight or so—and each leg appeared wet, but hairless.

Not damp—wet, soaking wet, like the skin glistens immediately after one emerges from the ocean, on the beach during a sunny day.

…And were it not for the clicking of the creature’s feet, paws—whatever—against the street, which Laura was able to follow with her ears to the side of the road, she would have been able to presume it a figment of her imagination.

Where to go? Laura wanted to look over her shoulder, gauge the distance between she and Jamie. This was a bad idea. She didn’t have a license, but driving a car couldn’t be rocket science. The lump in her throat refused to disperse.

Her face flush with blood, Laura began to walk again. Not all the sweat that coated her body was from the jog. These weren’t squirrels she heard rustling the leaves on either side of the road, not anymore anyway. There was something there, something larger, buried in the abysmal shadows lining the Interstate.

She started to run again, this time a little faster. Every time she heard the leaves jostling beside her, her pace slowed. They were disguising their movements with lesser and lesser care now; when she came to a stop and listened to hear, it took a moment for them to stop moving.

Underfoot, something crunched.

No twig nor leaf could make the noise she heard beneath her sneaker. This necessitated a complete halt; in the few steps she took after deciding to stop, she heard another crunch, accompanied by a gruesome sensation against the arch of her foot.

Reaching to her pocket, Laura produced a lighter, and knelt. If nothing else, perhaps whatever she’d stepped on would provide some clues about what was running about in the woods. Upon igniting it, it felt like a jolt of electricity zapped through her body. She was startled to find a collection of tiny insect-like creatures scampering about in the middle of the street; during her flight, Laura had killed two of them.

Though their identity lent little in the way of clues. These creatures looked like tiny crabs; their legs were shiny, metallic in appearance, with deep, reddish shells. Why they were stuck out here in the middle of the road, Laura had no idea—no lakes or streams were nearby, and the ocean was miles away.

Inclined to quell the flame and continue her journey, Laura paused. Something at the edge of the flickering orange sphere that surrounded her caught the corner of her eye. Turning to her left, Laura peered into the darkness, finding the tree that had arrested her attention.

And dropped the lighter, breaking out into a sprint.

Laura ran so fast toward the gas station, her legs began to burn before she was halfway there. But there would be no stopping. Not from what she’d caught glimpse of, perched on the side of the tree. All up and down the trunk were more of those crabs—larger, however, than their babies in the road. Before the flame flickered out, she saw dozens of them, all up and down the trees. There were probably more of them.

Suddenly, her foot caught the underside of some obstacle in the road, shearing open her calf and sending the girl sprawling to the relentless pavement. She rolled to a stop, her head spinning, having lost her bearings in her panic.

Before she could regain her composure, something leapt upon her back, throwing her arms out from under her and pinning her to the road. The ends of the creature’s legs were like the tips of knives, and its weight was substantial for its size. Squealing in horror, Laura struggled to get her arms beneath her again. Though she’d never been good at push-ups, the adrenaline pulsing through her veins would be more than sufficient to get her out from underneath her assailant.

Two more now—these sporting numerous tendrils from their undersides, slick with God-knows-what, spinning them tightly around her wrists and pulling her arms taut to either side. Now it was the echoes of her screams up and down the empty Interstate that spooked Laura.

As though they’d practiced this before, the creatures went about their work with terrifying efficiency, manipulating Laura’s helplessly squirming body until she lay on her back. The creatures that held her wrists hostage maintained their relentless grip, and the one that mounted her back repositioned itself so it was sitting on her chest. Countless oozing tentacles fell from its underside, cascading onto her breasts and falling to either side of her abdomen, slathering the front of Laura’s shirt with a foul-smelling fluid that nearly had her gagging on the spot.

Fighting became a farce. She felt another mount her feet, jabbing its pointed legs into the pavement and lowering its body onto her calves, negating any possibility she had of kicking herself free. Feeling one of them moving up her chest toward her face, Laura was appalled to watch the crescent moon eclipsed by its bulbous form; a series of its disgusting tentacles dragging over her breasts and plopping onto her neck and chin.

Whatever this thing intended, Laura wished no part of it. She ceased her screams and stared up at the creature, and over the thunderous beating of her heart against her ribcage, Laura heard a grotesque squishing noise emitting from the creature’s underside.

Though her thoughts were quickly kidnapped by a far more foreboding sensation: one of the creatures, she couldn’t tell which, had the tip of its leg pressed against her slender neck, proceeding to gradually increase the pressure it exerted on the supple flesh. Despite the mass of repulsive tentacles draped across her face, Laura shrieked, and the Creature struck.

Some sort of phallic tentacle had emerged from the center of the Creature’s underbelly, and when she opened her mouth to scream in protest of the pressure on her neck, a horrific goo splurted from within the Creature, colliding with the back of Laura’s throat. Until this point, she hadn’t struggled with all her might (though close to it), but feeling the reviling ooze flood her mouth, she threw her body weight to and fro, clawing at the tendrils round her wrists in desperation.

Much to Laura’s mortification, the Creature’s ooze did not dispense, and she could not spit it out. The glob took on a life of its own, adhering to the saliva in her mouth, locking her tongue in place and paralyzing her throat (not that she was inclined to swallow the revolting substance). It felt to be solidifying in place, becoming a rubbery, gelatinous mass trapped in her mouth, formed to the shape of her teeth.

Having waited patiently for the ‘King-Crab’ to dispense its viscous load, the remainder of the Creatures surrounded Laura, seizing her ankles with their tendrils as had been done with her wrists. Not even Laura could hear her screams any longer; the gel’s consistency saw to that.

With a Creature having grasped each of her limbs, their companion turned itself around and straddled the belly of the spread-eagled girl beneath it. Nearly all of its tentacles sprung to action, snaking their way around her midriff and interlocking in the small of her back. Once it had Laura’s stomach in its grasp, her entire body was lifted—each of the Creatures withdrew its tentacles, securing her belly and limbs against their undersides, and began to walk.

This has to be a nightmare. Laura couldn’t escape the feeling that she’d fallen asleep in Jamie’s car, and this was all just a perverse, twisted dream of her own construct.

Jamie. She was only a mile or so down the road, completely oblivious to the horrific threat that surrounded her in the woods. Would they attack the car? Would Jamie be able to escape in time? Would she have the sense to drive away if Laura didn’t return? Was she even still awake, or would these Creatures be able to infiltrate the vehicle without even the slightest resistance? Laura hoped that Jamie locked the doors; that would at least give her a fighting chance.

…Unlike herself. They’d swarmed her with such coldly efficient brutality, Laura hadn’t stood a chance of fighting them off. Now they were carrying her into the blackness, deep into the woods. But where to? Judging by the looks of things, they’d made their hive in the center of the Interstate, because that was where all the baby-Creatures had been.

So where could they be taking her?

***

Laura’s inquiry was answered soon enough. Their destination was far more stomach churning than she’d anticipated.

After a lengthy expedition into the heart of the woodland, carried by her multi-limbed, tentacled captors, Laura realized that the Creatures were slowing down. Lifting her head, she immediately understood why the Interstate couldn’t possibly have been their hive.

Were it not for the repulsive gel, which had chilled to an icy temperature despite the warmth of her mouth, Laura probably would have vomited. The Creatures had abducted her to a broad clearing in the middle of the woods, miles from the Interstate. In the center of this clearing was an enormous monstrosity, the likes of which Laura had never seen. Nearly as tall as the trees themselves, a jellylike monster lay dormant. A crimson, blood-like color, the organism was—for lack of a better word—a glutinous blob, criss-crossed with a network of thick, purple veins, and convulsing like the beating of a heart.

Its beating was far more subdued than that of Laura’s heart, however, which pummeled her chest with reckless abandon, threatening to give out at any moment. Upon catching glimpse of this monster—which Laura deemed “the Queen”—she writhed against her captors with renewed vigor, and was met with the same unyielding grip she’d come to expect.

The Creatures dropped Laura several yards short of the Queen, and while the tendrils maintained the grip on her ankles and wrists, the one that supported her stomach finally lowered her, its tentacles slithering out from under it and withdrawn back into its underside.

This one, however, served another purpose entirely. To Laura’s mortification, one of its tentacles snaked up under her shirt, leaving a trail of its vile essence along her midriff, and traced its way between her breasts. This particular member possessed teeth at the tip of its phallic appendage, teeth that seized the collar of her shirt just beneath her chin, before doubling back on itself, chewing through the fabric as it moved.

Before long, Laura’s shirt was severed in half, and the Creature was not content. It explored the entirety of her torso, devouring her shirt until there was nothing left, coating her flesh with its excretions, before doing the same with Laura’s bra.

Evidently filled to capacity by her shirt, Laura’s ankles were lowered as well. Her shoes and socks were peeled gruffly from her feet; the ankles of her jeans were taken between her assailants’ pincers and yanked down the length of her slender legs, hindered only slightly by the sheen of sweat that had formed beneath.

Laura shivered, partially from the cool air that met her naked form, though mostly from the fear that clenched her every muscle. The lead-Creature mounted her body once again, this time straddling her calves, and with a swift swipe of its appendage, removed her panties, leaving her wholly exposed to the night-chilled air and the Queen.

Then, silence, and motionless.

Laura’s abductors ceased to move. They’d stripped her naked and now held her, spread-eagle, against the rocky ground. For a time she was perplexed, thinking that the monsters intended to eat her—or worse—and could only stare at the sky, mind racing with a myriad of potentialities.

Only then did she see It—a stringy tentacle belonging to the Queen Herself, slithering down its bulbous mass like a snake. The Queen’s feeler approached her prone form, sniffing first at her feet and then working its way up between her legs, evidently intoxicated by Laura’s every scent. Most apparent was its infatuation with the crease between her legs—it thoroughly investigated her vagina and asshole, before making its way up along her stomach and chin.

Suddenly, the Thing was staring her in the face. An ugly, scarlet tentacle interwoven with the same purple veins as the rest of the Queen, the Thing sported one aspect that made it different from most of its crab-like companions: a gaping mouth, lined with razor teeth about its circumference. These teeth began to secrete a steaming, silver fluid that dribbled from its mouth and between Laura’s lips.

At first she presumed it to be drooling, made hungry by its naked, human captive. Yet the more fluid it dispense between her lips, the more she realized the gag was dissolving. With a groan, Laura shut her mouth and worked her jaw, once the goo had been liquefied and, unfortunately, swallowed.

Though until It fell onto Laura’s face, wriggling its way between her lips, did the girl have any idea what its intentions were—and by then it was too late. Before she could react the Thing had squirmed into the void left by the underling’s gag, snaking its way to the back of Laura’s mouth and slithering down her throat. Though tempted to choke and wretch, Laura was unable to—while the Creatures held her down, the Queen penetrated her esophagus. It must have regurgitated some sort of sub-tentacles because Laura could feel It divide, infiltrating each of her lungs. She felt these sub-tendrils find a cozy place within her lungs and, with a motion she could only describe as ‘ticklish’, adhere to the interior of each.

Were her mouth not filled with the atrocities, Laura would have screamed, as the tentacles hijacked her ability to breathe. They swelled up inside her lungs and stuck to the surfaces, and then deflated, forcing her to exhale through the Queen’s tentacle. After a few choking, strangling repetitions of this ghastly theft of her natural abilities, Laura became somewhat accustomed to the sensation, albeit reluctantly.

Slowly, It began to stand erect, pulling Laura’s entire body up with it. The Creatures released their grip, but any resistance she offered was futile. The tentacle’s membrane was much too thick to bite through, and her fingernails obviously did little damage. Her arms and legs flailing uselessly, the Queen dragged Laura across the ground and up along its pulsating exterior.

Despite its semi-solid appearance, the Queen’s exterior was something like gooey sandpaper. Still Laura clawed at its flesh, desperate to find a handhold. She stood little chance against the Creatures below, but she’d rather face them than whatever this vast blob had in store for her. Despite her nakedness, Laura wanted nothing more than a chance to flee through the woods to the waiting car.

But the Queen’s flesh was unaccommodating, and with little effort Laura was dragged—by her lungs, which she feared would be torn out through her mouth—to the Queen’s crest, to where the tentacle had emerged.

As It slithered back into place, It took Laura with It, dragging her head-first into a clutching channel that compressed tightly around her naked body. Filled with fluid, Laura was grateful for the Thing—were it not for its control of her lungs, she surely would have drowned in the Queen’s bowels.

Despite her desire to see what waited at the end of the viscous tunnel, Laura refrained from opening her eyes. She did so once, and the effect was like saltwater on her retinas—a searing agony ensued, delivering an unmistakable message: don’t do that again.

Blind, Laura allowed herself to be tugged through the tunnel without resistance. Even if she did manage to free herself from the Thing, she would probably suffocate before re-orienting herself and returning to the surface. Besides, removing It would probably tear her lungs out through her throat, which was a prospect she didn’t really want to contemplate.

Her ultimate destination, it seemed, was the Queen’s stomach, or womb perhaps. The passage opened into a fluid-filled sac in the monster’s core, and once Laura was safely within, the Thing ceased its withdrawal. She floated in the thick, slimy liquid for a time, the Thing permitting her to catch her breath for a moment.

Then, she felt It’s viny companions. Where the Thing had the ability to move on its own, It’s companions just seemed to float towards Laura’s body. She felt them graze against her legs and arms, and once they did, they adhered to her form with what felt like countless tiny suction-cups. With these cups, they were able to creep across her form.

First they seized her hands. Despite her inability to see them for herself, Laura found the Queen’s inner-tentacles reminiscent of the outer, with gaping mouths that devoured her form hungrily. These had no teeth; they simply swallowed her hands up to her wrists, one at a time, and pulled Laura’s body into the shape of a ‘Y’.

Then, her feet. These were distinguishably different from any of the others. The tentacles consumed her petite toes and swallowed her bare feet up to her ankles; but where the others were intended to restrain her, these served a separate purpose. They were, surprisingly, dry inside, with the exception of dozens of even tinier tendrils, which coated her feet with a sickening ooze. The application of this new fluid seemed deliberate, because it felt like numerous tiny penises ejaculating on her soles and between her toes.

Despite their special purpose, the tentacles devouring her feet were of the same strength and consistency as their partners, capable of spreading her legs—which they did with little hesitation. Spread-eagled, helpless, and—presumably, though gravity had long since ceased to have effect in here—upside-down, Laura’s options were severely limited. All she could do for several minutes was breath into the Thing and hope for the best. At least her mind had gone into shock, and Laura had convinced herself that this was, in fact, a dream—even if it wasn’t.

Only once she grew complacent and reserved herself to floating lifelessly in the fluid did Laura feel the Queen’s pair of Essences.

With the consistency of a jellyfish, the Essences were’t hard to identify. Immediately Laura realized why the Queen had taken such care to restrain her before introducing them—evidently, it was the Queen’s most vulnerable appendage. Feeling them gliding up her legs, spiraling around her calves and thighs, Laura had no doubt that she could have damaged the Essences with little effort.

But it was much too late for that. The suction securing her hands and feet were far too powerful to overwhelm. One of the Essences, the thicker of the pair, probed curiously at the entrance of her pussy, while the second wormed its way between her asscheeks and found her rectum. This latter wasted little time in its endeavors; it poked at her asshole briefly and invited itself in, and once nestled inside, inflated painfully inside her bum. Even if her hands were free, the tentacle was lodged too deeply inside her to be removed. It inflated until the agony was too much to bear and Laura released a silent scream, forcing her to arch her back, thrusting her pussy toward the Essence invitingly.

Needless to say, it accepted. Slowly, it worked its way into Laura’s pussy, distending her lips around its considerable girth. Emitting another useless scream into the Thing that filled her mouth, Laura writhed in helplessness as the Essence worked its way as deep as it possibly could, and then a pause.

The prior pause had not boded well, for it signified the advent of the Thing while she was outside. Laura was skeptical that this one would end any better. Floating limply in the deepest depths of this monster, simultaneously being anally and vaginally violated, while her inhuman rapist forced her lungs to breath, Laura was seriously doubted that her predicament could grow any worse.

…Her predicament got worse.

The hesitation, she surmised, had occurred while the Queen transferred something through the Essence. Whatever it was, it moved through the Essence as a bulbous, spherical bubble that came to a halt between Laura’s thighs. The bubble’s enormity forbade entry to Laura’s cunt, and seeing as how it stretched the Essence from thigh-to-thigh despite how splayed her legs were held, the girl was grateful.

But the Queen was persistent, and prepared. First, the glop that had been spurted on Laura’s soles were spread across the undersides of her feet by thousands of tiny tendrils, each the size of fishing-line if not smaller. Her feet were Laura’s weakness—they were unimaginably ticklish anyway, and with the application of the goo, her soles were ultra-sensitive. The tendrils drew across her tender toes and arches, tormenting Laura with the sensations.

Meanwhile, the second Essence lodged in her ass began to pulsate and expand, prompting Laura to arch her back even further, spreading her pussy a bit wider, and thus permitting the bubble to leak some of its contents through the strained passage.

Upon permitting some of the mystery fluid into Laura’s womb, the Queen relaxed the Essence in her ass for a moment, but when the girl went limp it expanded once more. Again the creature sodomized Laura, and again her tender feet were tormented, until she arched her back once more, and a slight amount of fluid was once again released into her.

After this process was repeated once more, Laura got the gist. The Queen didn’t refrain from torturing her feet when Laura began grinding up and down on the tentacle violating her pussy, but it stopped inflating the Essence in her ass. Slowly, Laura used her strength to pull against the tentacles around her hands, pulling herself up and down, fucking the Queen. Each time her vagina clamped on the Essence, a little more of the goo was dispensed into her passage.

At long last, the Queen had drained itself into Laura, and the assault on her feet ceased. She’d been kidnapped from the side of the road by creatures unlike any this world has ever seen, and raped by a monster just as foreign. Now she floated dormant in the core of the Queen, feeling its tendrils manufacturing its offspring inside Laura’s womb. Her body was wholly useless now; Laura’s only recourse was to go limp and let the Queen do its work within her, hoping that death would salvage her from this unholy misery.

***

The tubes in Laura’s mouth brought her to consciousness with a jolt.

Within the Queen’s bowels, unconsciousness had finally prevented her from enduring the trauma from any longer, and Laura had passed out. Now awake, her eyes snapped open and, realizing that her hands were free, she struggled to tear the Thing from her lungs. She didn’t care anymore; suicide inside the belly of this beast is far better than being its prisoner for all eternity.

Laura’s panic did not go unnoticed, however. When she yanked the tubes from her mouth and nostrils, the nurses were alerted promptly, and when they couldn’t restrain the frenzied woman, several doctors flowed into her room to restrain her.

It took six doctors, two nurses, and a syringe to sedate Laura, and when she awoke once again several hours later, there was a doctor sitting expectantly beside her. She looked to him with dazed, glossed eyes, wondering if he was real or not. He was, and this filled her entire form with warmth.

Safety.

Once they knew that Laura was operating under her own willpower once more, the Doctors proceed to explain the circumstances of her admittance. On Monday morning—it was Saturday afternoon—a truck driver had come to a stop in the middle of the Walton Interstate, due to the naked woman laying unconscious in the center of the road.

He scooped her up and delivered her promptly to the nearest gas station, at which point an ambulance had been summoned, and Laura had been transported to the hospital.

The doctor asked her questions—do you remember being raped? Do you remember his face? Do you remember Jamie?—but Laura could only respond to the final question, nodding her head weakly.

Jamie was okay; she’d fallen asleep in her car and been awakened the next morning by a team of DOT workers that were attempting to clear the fallen tree from the Interstate. At first she’d been annoyed, the doctor said, that she’d been abandoned; but when she called Laura’s mother, and discovered that Laura was presumed to be sleeping at her house, Jamie called the police.

Since she was last seen on Sunday night, it seemed, Laura had been a missing person.

Too weak to do much else, Laura lay quietly in her bed, entombed on all sides by the downy hospital blankets. It was close to midnight and visiting hours were over, the doctor informed her, but Laura would be able to see her parents first thing the next morning. When he went to leave, Laura panicked, driven to frenzy by her loneliness and the echo of the door slamming shut in the empty room. Turning, the doctor noticed Laura writhing in her bed, whimpering desperately and starting to cry. Taking pity on the tortured young woman, the doctor returned to her bedside and stroked her hazel hair until at last she fell asleep.

Then, he kissed her on the forehead, and departed.

***

Once the human was gone, they emerged. The King had probed this woman’s mind extensively, and they knew their destination.

Several Creatures, which were tentatively known by their native species as Mytes, abandoned their home within the human girl’s womb and scampered out through her vaginal passage, making their way down her legs and feet before sneaking out underneath the sheets of her bed. Of the original fourteen placed here by their King, one remained behind.

The remainder skittered single-file through the hospital corridors, searching for the stairwell. Once located, they progressed to the lobby and secreted themselves under the emergency room doors, careful not to draw the attention of the lobbyist as they did so.

Thus they began their journey: as quickly as their crab-like legs would carry them, the tiny Creatures made their way down the sidewalk, into the night. The moon above was nearly half-full now, but that made little difference to them.

Somewhere out there was a slumber party, and thirteen ripe human-wombs awaited their arrival.