averygoodun42

Wally was a really nice guy, which was maybe why, when his town was hit by a massive flood, the news crews focused on him and his efforts to help. His house sat above the water, and so he invited all the people of the very small town into his home until the waters went down.

I was just visiting, but got caught in the town when the waters rose even further, cutting off the remaining road out. He was very helpful, though, and when it became obvious that I couldn't leave, invited me in with everyone else. I accepted, even though I thought he was playing the sympathy card with the news crew to create hype for the town, which seemed to me to be a tourist attraction more than a real town.

His home was an odd mix of normal, old, New Englander, and a lodge/church/theater. Everyone from the town was gathered in the pews off the kitchen area, talking to each other. There was more an air of an informal party than of a disaster.

Wally invited me to sit next to him, and I accepted. He was the only person I knew the name of, after all. He did introduce me, and the people all smiled, but mainly kept to themselves. Wally and I chatted about the town and his life here, with brief mentions of both our families. We got to know one another, and I found I liked him. He was really quite decent, even if this was a publicity ploy.

As the night wore on, I got tired. I found myself leaning on Wally more and more. He didn't discourage me. There wasn't exactly room anywhere to lie down properly, and I was a virtual stranger, so he wasn't going to offer me his and his wife's bed. Besides which, I had the impression his wife was in that bed. So he offered me a friendly shoulder, and I leaned on him.

Even though I was tired and nearly asleep, I noticed people were starting to mutter behind us. It wasn't very long before they got up and moved to the small kitchen area in protest.

When the mutterings became loud enough that even Wally and I couldn't ignore, I turned to confront everyone.

They were threatening to leave, preferring to risk their lives wading through the waist-high water than watch Wally and me canoodling. I shook my head and snorted, though very quietly. I knew there was nothing going on. Wally knew that as well. But denying that anything was going on was just going to cement it as fact that there was indeed something going on.

"Tell you what," I said. "If you can find a judge and will swear to never tell a soul of what you hear, I'll tell you the whole sordid tale behind Wally and me."

As it turned out, there was a judge in the crowded kitchen and most everyone was in the mood for a good, dirty tale. I smiled to myself, thinking that I was very clever, and they were going to be sorely disappointed. There really was nothing going on between Wally and myself.

So, Wally and I took centerstage as everyone made their way back into the pews. When they'd settled down, Wally began talking. It turned out he had a story to get off his chest, and this was an opportunity he couldn't quite pass up, what with everyone having vowed silence on the matter.

He told us how, as a young man, he'd been assaulted one night. He had a picture of the damage that made me wonder if he'd been sexually assaulted as well. Soon after the attack, he'd developed a sore throat and a fever. His face broke out in red splotches and he'd felt like he was going to die. And then they found that something was living in his throat.

They didn't know what preceisely it was, all they knew was that it was evil. It was taking his flesh and making it its own.

Wally was quarrantined, as nobody knew what it was that was wrong with him, but the fever got worse, and his father couldn't just stand by and watch his son die. He went out and came back later with a hard looking young man. This young man took one look at Wally and told him to open his mouth. The hardened young man looked into Wally's mouth, and nodded. He opened his mouth, and something shot out of his mouth and went into Wally's, leaving an umbilical-like cord. Wally gagged and spluttered for a moment before the something retreated from his throat, along with a similar looking creature. Then, in an instant they were returned to the hard man's mouth.

Wally was confused, grossed out and completely bewildered. What was that creature, what was it doing in him, why did it go back to the man... The other man was not forth-coming, only telling him that the sickness should go away, though the damage to his throat would never heal completely. He'd always have the evidence that he'd been invaded.

At this point, one of the women who had not left the room before started fussing over her son. He was feverish and his face had become red and blotchy. Wally paled as he looked at him, and then turned to a hard man sitting a few pews back. The man nodded and advanced on the boy while Wally reassured the mother that everything would be okay.

The boy opened his mouth when asked, and there it was, just like Wally had described. It was like an extra tube attached to the soft pallette and descending down the throat - a perfect hiding place for something long, thin and slithery. The hard man opened his throat and out came a hideous creature, shooting into the boy's mouth. But, instead of an umbilical, it left only slime, which fell away as it made itself home in the boy's throat.

Wally looked at the hard man, horrified.

"But, it was supposed to help!" Wally cried, appalled that he'd introduced something so vile to the boy. "I thought... It was supposed to help!"