The Variant Effect: PAINKILLER by G. Wells Taylor Read Free Book Online Page A

Are you feeling all right? We
could give you something else, if you’re anxious at all.”
    “I feel great!” Borland laughed. “But I’ve
never been a cheap date. Especially after the old cranking days.”
He smacked his lips as a wave of warm exhaustion splashed over his
mind. “ Uhn. Gahn ,” he mumbled, for a minute in a swoon. The
nurse swabbed his lips with lemon juice again.
    Things went dark and then...
    Where the hell am I?
    “There we go, Captain,” the nurse cooed. “Is
that better?”
    And Borland felt his mind kick awake
again.
    “So, Captain Borland, how bad is it?” the
doctor asked, his muffled voice carrying real concern. “Are we
headed back into the day ?”
    “What do you mean?” And then Borland had a
sinking feeling. What did you tell them ?
    “You said the Variant Effect was coming
back.” The doctor peered over the curtain. “How bad is it?”
    “What?” Borland’s mind raced. What else
did you tell him ? The pressure and heat were building in his
abdomen. He tried to cover. “I meant before, like it was coming
before. It was bad back then, is all,” Borland grumbled and
laughed, looking up at the doctor. “No worries.”
    He froze.
    There was something up there behind the
doctor, a shape, no a shadow.
    A man? Someone watching .
    Borland laughed as a wave of euphoria flooded
him.
    The centipede ?
    “Who’s that?” he said, squinting into the
overhead lights.
    “Pardon me?” the doctor asked, flinching,
following Borland’s gaze up over his shoulder. He looked back to
Borland like nothing was there.
    But Borland could see a shape. Something dark
and broad moved into the space over the doctor’s shoulder.
    “Right there ,” Borland said, gesturing
with his chin and laughing. “Some ugly bastard.”
    Borland’s vision cleared and the shape
resolved into something big. It had a green, segmented body. And
there were eyes—beady and shiny like its glistening shell—watching
from under long fuzzy antennae while its serrated jaws dripped.
    Borland laughed as it wrapped its barbed legs
around the doctor’s shoulders like it was an old friend.
    “A centipede,” Borland said, unable to feel
any terror. He laughed. “Like the one in my room. But way bigger.”
    The doctor looked over at the nurse and
nodded.
    “Don’t worry, Captain Borland,” he reassured.
“Hallucinations are common with the mixture of drugs in your
system.”
    “A big green one,” Borland continued. “Can’t
step on him though...”
    The doctor looked at the nurse and chuckled,
and Borland laughed.
    Then something caught the nurse’s eye because
she looked past the doctor and her hands came up. The doctor just
started to turn when a solid crunching sound knocked him
forward onto Borland. He rolled off and out of sight. The nurse
barely got a scream out before there was another crunch . Her
body shook and she fell against Borland, her cheek striking his
before she hit the floor.
    Borland laughed.
    The strange woman who couldn’t eat chicken
was leaning over him.
    “Hey!” he shouted gleefully. “ You’re all better.”
    “Hurry,” she said, yanking the IV out of his
hand and pulling the sheets off him. The woman heaved Borland into
a sitting position, and then removed a pair of clamps from flaps of
skin around the wound in his belly.
    He only felt a minor tug.
    Borland kept smiling as she tied his pants
and closed his top. The thin material was immediately saturated by
a wave of blood. “We’ve got to get you out of here. NOW!”
    She helped him off the table. He started
laughing, one arm over her shoulder as strange sensations pulsed in
his chest and stomach. He steadied himself against her.
    She snatched a scalpel from a tray by the
table, and led Borland out of the room.
    “We can’t let them do this!” Determination
hardened her features. She looked like a cop.
    Borland laughed and staggered along with her.
He felt wet and cold on his legs, but that was all he could
feel.
    The