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Queen of the Swarm by Vherstinae

Books » Worm Rated: M, English, Drama & Adventure, Skitter, Tattletale, Shadow Stalker, Emma B., Words: 224k+, Favs: 4k+, Follows: 3k+, Published: Dec 25, 2014 Updated: Sep 4, 2017

1,943Chapter 2: Spawn 01

Spawn 1.01

Madison couldn't stop giggling. So much so, in fact, that Emma had to tell her to go hide in the bathroom so she didn't give them away. Sophia was at the end of her rope, about ready to start beating on Madison. In fact, if it hadn't been for Emma arguing the girl's usefulness, Sophia probably would have hurt her.

Madison would have broken. She wasn't strong; not like Taylor was. Taylor had survived her mother's death. She could take the abuse and break free, just like Emma had. Like Sophia had. Then she'd be worthy, not just prey. Sophia, of course, just wanted to break Taylor; maybe even kill her. She was the ultimate predator. But Emma knew better: Taylor could learn from this. This would be her cocoon, and a better Taylor would emerge from it.

In truth, this was the most nuanced of their pranks. Usually Sophia came up with the ideas, or at least picked the ones they'd use from numerous possibilities offered by Emma and Madison. This one, however, was all Emma's brainchild and would, if successful, be the last in their campaign. She, Madison and Sophia had saved up all their pads and tampons for two months, and had stolen more from the school's bathrooms. The plan was months in the making, and now it would pay off.

The bell rang. Emma and Sophia ducked behind the rows of lockers, nodding their confirmation to one another. Taylor would be along soon, to change.

(BREAK)

Things were quiet. If I were more into cliches, I might have said they were too quiet. Very little laughing behind my back. No little smug glances from Emma or Madison, no murderous ones from Sophia. In fact, when I'd seen them, they were uncharacteristically solemn, barely looking at me. That had been when I'd first gotten to school. It was now PE, and still no bullying. It was like their terror campaign had just...ended. While I was still walking on eggshells, some part of me – something in my very soul – unclenched. For the first time in nearly two years, I allowed myself to hope again.

God, but it stank in here. The locker room always had a scent of mold; Winslow was sort of a shithole, as far as schools went, and not a day went by that I didn't curse myself for being such a goddamn good friend. If I'd just gone with my grades, tried a scholarship to Arcadia, I wouldn't be hounded by those evil bitches almost every day of my life. No, bad thoughts. Maybe Emma's dad sat her down, figured out what was going on. His dad and mine were old friends, after all. Maybe Emma shaped up and was ashamed of herself...

Fuck, my mind was wandering. But it had good reason to. I wanted to ignore that stink. God, had the janitors done anything while Christmas break was on? Probably not. Holding my nose with one hand, I clumsily turned the combination and opened my locker.

A swarm of flies burst forth, their hairy, pointy legs tearing at my skin as they buzzed everywhere at once. My first instinct was to scream but I held it in, not even breathing out of fear they'd get in my lungs. Onto the floor dripped maggots and fetid slime, a thick mix of dark red and black-green chunks. Through the noxious fumes I could make out white objects stained red. Whatever they were, they must've been placed here before the holiday break. With the extra snow days from one of the worst ice storms to hit Brockton Bay in years, school hadn't been open in nearly a month. These things had been...rotting...for nearly a month.

I couldn't stop myself. I lurched over and vomited, so hard I couldn't even pause to inhale. It felt like my esophagus was being squashed together like an accordion, my voicebox trying to squeeze itself up out of my throat. I clutched my thighs, sobbing as best I could. My eyes burned, vision turning brown as I realized with horror that vomit was leaking from my tear ducts. The world swam before me and I had to fight to remain conscious.

I was jerked back to the real world when someone grabbed a fistful of my hair, jerking so hard it felt like my scalp would tear off. My ears buzzed from the pain of vomiting so hard, but I could recognize a hateful tone when I heard it.

Sophia.

It had to be her. Only she was this violent. Emma tortured me psychologically, and in the end that hurt the most, and Madison was a childish little fuck content to smear glue on my seat or steal my quiz answers. Sophia was the thug of the group. In the darkest recesses of my mind I thought that there might be some way to get Empire Eighty-Eight to kill her.

All of those thoughts whirled through my mind in the split-second it took for her to shove me into that churning nightmare, giving me a vicious kick to the spine to force me in the rest of the way before slamming the locker shut and spinning the lock. I couldn't even scream. I just whimpered in pain, the purest pain imaginable. It wasn't just physical pain; it was emotional, spiritual. Every last fucking cell in my body vibrated in sheer agony. My skinny frame sank down, legs giving out from the pain of the kick and feet slipping on the nightmare soup beneath me. I bit my lip hard enough to break the skin, tears and vomit seeping from my eyes and nose as the maggots bit into my flesh, delighted to have a new meal.

Pain, sadness and shame gave way to panic. I could die here. The maggots would eat into me, give me blood poisoning, and I'd die in this rotting filth. A primal scream I didn't even realize I was capable of tore from my lungs, launching more chunks of vomit into the air. I was too maddened with terror to even bother with the particles of upchuck that lodged my epiglottis open and leaked into my lungs. The locker was small, but I was skinny. I beat on the door with my hands and elbows, shrieked as loud as I could. I wasn't even sure if I was articulating words, but the sheer primal fear in my voice should've clued some people in.

Instead, I heard laughter. Not just the voices of my tormentors, but of others. They knew I was in here. They could see the filth and maggots pooled in front of my locker, so they would have to know I was in here with something rotting. And they were laughing.

I hurled my body against the locker door, all of my ninety-some pounds moving several inches to impact it. Again and again. I felt the bites, felt the things crawling INSIDE me. I was dead and I knew it. No matter what happened, I would die here. My only chance was to get free, to publicly blame Emma, Sophia and Madison. I wasn't going to let them get away with murdering me.

Most people black out. For me, my vision went white.

(BREAK)

Destination.

Agreement.

Trajectory.

Agreement.

Concern.

Confidence.

Renege?

Denial. Destination.

...Agreement.

(BREAK)

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Bip. Bip. Bip."

For whatever reason, my first vocalization upon returning to consciousness was to imitate the EKG. Needless to say, when I realized this, I stopped.

My dad's eyes fluttered open. He looked like shit, and smelled like a homeless person. Jesus, his clothes looked terrible too, and I was far enough away that he was a little blurry. Had...had he been here the whole time? How long was "the whole time"?

"Taylor!" He kept his voice down, and I was thankful. My head felt like someone had split it in two with an axe and then put it back together with tape. His hand was on mine and it felt like he'd break it. I winced and looked down at myself.

Oh. My. Fuck. I was skeletal. I looked like the pictures psychiatrists would post online to scare people away from the "pro-ana" lifestyle. I rasped, but no words came out. Apparently I was stuck just making little pops of air.

"Bip." I couldn't help myself from smiling, even at how horrible the situation was. That was just too absurd. Dad smiled too, and tears just started pouring down his face. For a moment I saw them as brown, chunks of vomit and blood mixed in, before my...flashback? Vision? Whatever. Before I shook it off and saw my crying father again.

"Are...are you alright? Can you understand me?"

I pondered a moment, then gave my head a shake as best I could, followed by a nod. He seemed to get it.

"What do you need?"

I let go of his hand to mime typing on a keyboard. Oh god, my fingers looked like spiders' legs, albino spiders' legs. Again, I was back in the locker. I had to grit my teeth as hard as I could to keep from screaming. Thankfully, dad understood and patted my hand, bringing me back into the real world. He pushed the nurse call button.

(BREAK)

While my dad negotiated with the nurse to get a laptop or smartphone or anything I could use to type – I didn't trust my hands enough to hold a pen – I was doing my utmost not to get lost in my own mind. I could feel them, in the walls. The bugs were there, coming to get me. I could feel them crawling inside me, the maggots who got in.

Oh god, god, oh fucking god. They were going to eat me. They were going to burst from my chest like fucking Alien and–

No. I forced my mind to a halt. I will NOT give in! They will not break me. It was all in my head, just like the flashbacks. I was just imagining it. I could feel them crawling all around me, but it was just in my mind. I just needed to center myself, needed to just stop.

...Whoa.

My inner monologue suddenly took on Keanu Reeves' timbre. When I thought "stop," I could feel it. All of the bugs I felt around me, they froze. I could still feel them standing there like they'd been touched in a game of freeze tag.

Um, go?

With that thought, the bugs resumed their scuttling. It took me longer than it should have to process that. My excuse was that I was suffering from PTSD. I tried again: Stop. Then, after a few seconds, Go. It worked. I tuned out my dad as he debated some bureaucratic bullshit over not giving outside electronics to patients, closed my eyes, and focused.

It was like a switch had been flipped. I wasn't afraid anymore. I had control. For the first time in so long, I had control. And I controlled something that had previously frightened me. My mind reached further, and I could catalog the different kinds of bugs. Houseflies, hiding in crevices of the kitchen brickwork. Spiders in the ducts. Earthworms and cockroaches burrowing around beneath the foundation. Bees outside, happily pollinating the flowers. Butterflies getting drinks. I started to focus outside, and I could feel the cute ones. Fuzzy, round little bumblebees, all black and yellow, sipping nectar and getting pollen stuck to their adorable fluff. Ladybugs flitting here and there, hunting aphids and protecting the flowers. Beautiful butterflies drifting lazily on air currents, landing only to take a sip and move along. I felt a mosquito wing its way in through the ducts and make a beeline for my dad. With a thought, I sent it back into the air system and to a spiderweb. Fuck you, mosquito.

My eyes snapped back open. That had been reflexive. It hadn't taken any effort on my part at all. Even now, I could sense them all. I could control them all. And I knew them all. Sixty-seven thousand, four hundred twenty-two bugs, worms and assorted creepy-crawlies I had in...whatever range it was. I could feel every single one, and I instinctively knew I could command every single one to undertake a different action with only minimal concentration.

The nurse must've noticed my eyes open again, because she gave me a conspiratorial smile. I held in my surprise. Did she know? Did she have powers too? She came closer so I could really make out her face, setting a slightly tanned hand on my skeletal, alabaster one. She was pretty yet plain, sort of like I was, I guess. Somehow that little connection comforted me. "Okay," she said in a hushed voice, looking between dad and me, "I'm not technically supposed to do this, but if anybody deserves it, you do." She unclipped her own smartphone and presented it to me while calling up the keyboard. "Here you go, sweetie."

I smiled at her, wincing a little as my dehydrated lips stretched across bone-dry gums. Thank god my fingers still worked. I typed quickly. Thank you. I paused a moment. What's your name?

She smiled. "I'm Shelby. I'll leave you two alone." She stepped out.

I looked over to dad. How long have I been out?

His smile suddenly faded. "You've...you've been in a coma. For a week." He looked like he wanted to say more, but was gathering his thoughts. I let him. He'd had a week of worries and questions. "Taylor...god, sweetie, what happened? You never told me you were being bullied, but this thing doesn't just happen as a one-off. What's been going on?"

I couldn't keep the tears from falling. Since last year. Emma's been the one. Her, Sophia Hess and Madison Clements. They've been torturing me.

I could see the bulge in dad's temple as he clenched his jaw, reining in his temper. He'd pretty much had to develop one as part of the Dockworkers' Union, but it wouldn't do to scream at his daughter in the hospital. Okay, that wasn't giving him enough credit. He did his best not to yell even in my presence. "Taylor...why didn't you tell me?" The question was simple, but goddamn did the disappointment in his voice hurt.

You couldn't have done anything, I typed. You were still hurting from mom. You'd have driven yourself insane and we'd have been destroyed financially. The Barnes' (I wasn't sure about the plural, but fuck it) are rich. I thought things were going to be better, that maybe Mr. Barnes had set Emma straight.

Dad draped himself over me and just cried. He cried and I could feel everything. Mom, his helplessness, his wish for a better life for me. It was like the concepts themselves were spilling from his eyes.

(BREAK)

The next day I was due for discharge. Before that, however, the doctor and Nurse Shelby took my dad into a separate room, apparently to tell him the full extent of my injuries now that I was conscious and recovering.

Over the night I'd experimented with my bugs – I'd already come to think of them as my bugs – to see what I could do. The best way I could use them was for the sense of touch, giving me a very good idea of where someone was. But it was as I was falling asleep that I got another revelation: when I was zoned out, half-asleep or otherwise not thinking entirely as a human, it was easier to hear through them. Maybe because my bugs' brains were so basic that my own brain needed to be working at less than full efficiency to understand the signals.

With that in mind, I let my vision go glassy and just slumped in the bed, going as close to braindead as I could consciously manage. The hardest part was keeping this state – this fugue – while maintaining enough state of mind to understand what was being said. I still had a long way to go, but maybe I'd get lucky. I drifted off, my consciousness slipping into the bugs around my dad.

"...the IV drip almost every hour. Mister Hebert, that's not natural. It's supposed to drip, naturally flowing into the bloodstream over hours. This is like a vacuum was hooked up to the needle and sucked it all out."

"Yes, doctor," my dad said, his voice a little strained from frustration, "but what does that mean?"

"Honestly? I..." The voice faded, my focus coming back into the present. I stared at the ceiling and tried to get back into the mindset. Everything buzzed for a moment, my bugs trying to tell me what they were hearing. "...real injuries, thankfully. I don't know how it's possible, but other than some superficial bruising, there's no damage. The vast majority is psychological." I heard the doctor take a breath. "You know that, now that she's conscious, they'll try to press charges."

My father literally snarled. "They can try. Doctor, I need you to give me a full write-up of her coma and psychotic break. I want hard evidence against anything these fuckers bring up."

I could only presume the doctor nodded, because Shelby spoke up. "I'm usually a good judge of character. Taylor seems like a sweet girl, just from how the two of you interact. We'll help you, Mr. Hebert."

Huh, that was new. People actually being good human beings. I guess the shock of that, that there actually were decent folks in the world, must've gotten to me, because I slipped from partial consciousness to full unconsciousness.

(BREAK)

I woke up to my dad petting my hair. At least that was still there. I may have been even paler than before, and my lack of curves had pretty much transformed to a concave body shape from malnutrition, but my long ringlets of black hair always made me feel beautiful.

"Hey, baby girl," he smiled at me. "Feeling a little better?"

I nodded and managed to rasp out, "Yeah. Could use a drink, though." My voice was so ragged I thought I'd start spitting up dust bunnies.

Shelby came in wearing a wide smile and carrying a folded-up wheelchair. As she opened it up, I saw a manila folder had been tucked into it. She handed that to my dad with a knowing nod, then the pair of them helped me into it and covered me with a blanket. I was only in a hospital gown and some disposable underwear, so the blanket preserved my modesty as well as kept me warm.

Dad walked alongside me as Shelby wheeled me through the hospital, and had taken to nicknaming me Janis due to my raspy voice. He kept jokingly prodding me to start singing, "Take A Piece of My Heart." I responded by swatting at him. Despite my feigned annoyance, we were both smiling more than we had since we'd lost mom. Somehow, all of this horror had brought us closer together.

We were going to be okay.

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