The Perimeter by Will McIntosh Read Free Book Online Page A

sectioned body twitched.
    If she could reach her com in the kitchen, there was a word to call a security emergency. Phillipa couldn’t remember it. She could barely think.
    It went around her again, higher this time, feet like thorns puncturing her nightgown, pressing into the soft flesh of her breasts. Her nose was running, but she didn’t dare lift her arm to wipe it.
    Soon there was nothing left of the thing on the sheets; all of it was on her, wrapped around her a dozen times. It tucked its head against her collarbone and looked up at her.
    An inch at a time, Phillipa slid out of bed. The thing didn’t protest. She had to get to her com. Barely able to inhale, her breath impeded by the constriction across her chest and stomach, she watched the thing’s face for signs that it noticed her movements, but it only went on looking at her.
    When she felt the cold floor under her feet, the thing opened its long slit of a mouth and gurgled something. She didn’t understand the deep, watery sound that came from it but knew it was a warning.
    “Help me, help me, help me,” she chanted as she crossed the living room and entered the kitchen. She activated her com and said, “Emergency red, emergency red,” the distress phrase coming back to her out of thin air.
    Almost immediately a voice answered, “Emergency red, or do you need a medic? You shouldn’t call emergency red unless—”
    “Emergency red, goddammit!”
    “On the way,” the voice responded.
    Phillipa stood in the center of the kitchen, arms extended, whimpering, as various legs on the thing lifted to groom its body. It covered her from waist to chest, and it smelled awful, rotten.
    She heard the front door fly open. The thump of boots filled the hall; then half a dozen people in red security uniforms appeared.
    A thousand points stung Phillipa’s skin. Phillipa dropped to her knees, screaming from the pain as the creature made a horrible sputtering sound, like an oil-filled tire deflating. It swayed from side to side like a cobra while every single spiny foot squeezed Phillipa simultaneously.
    “Help me,” she whispered, still holding her arms away from her body as the thing gurgled at the security people.
    The small, dark woman in the lead spread her arms. “Everyone take a step back. Don’t make any threatening movements. Weapons away.” There was rustling and clicking, then silence. “Back out of the room, one at a time. Meisell, you first.”
    When everyone was out, the woman looked at Phillipa. “What’s your name, dear?”
    “Phillipa.”
    “My name is Melba. Can you tell me what happened in a nice, calm voice?”
    Phillipa told her as the creature’s head turned one way and then the other, as if trying to follow the conversation.
    When Phillipa finished, Melba asked, “Do you have family we can contact?”
    “What? No, my parents are dead. I have uncles and…” She trailed off. The question had thrown her because it wasn’t what she’d expected to come next. “Jesus, why are you just standing there? Get it off me. ”
    Melba shook her head tightly. “Some of the creatures in the wild are extremely bizarre, and I don’t know anything about this one. We could cut off its head and learn that only makes it angry.”
    “Well, find someone who does know about it.”
    Melba held up her hands, urging Phillipa to stay calm. “Someone is working on that right now.” Melba lifted her com, requested a medic. Why a medic hadn’t been alerted as soon as the emergency red had been called, Phillipa couldn’t guess. “In the meantime, I’m going to have you sedated. We can’t let a medic get close enough to you to deliver the injection, so you’ll have to do it yourself. Can you do that?”
    “Yes.” A sedative sounded good to her. She’d never so desperately wanted to be unconscious.
     
    * * *
     
    Pain woke Phillipa, shredding the thick haze of drugged sleep. When she came to awareness, she found she was already sitting up. A medic,