"I know I keep saying this," Cynthia Keim said for the fifth time that night, "but I still can't believe we went swimming outside in JANUARY!"
In the back seat of the dark green SUV, Jayce Harris wished she would try harder. Cynthia was hot as hell, but the girl had a fiery hatred of silence. Jayce was exhausted from swimming and partying all day, but every damned time he closed his eyes, Cynthia opened her mouth.
"Bitch is killin' me," Jayce thought as she lit up a cigarette. Smoke never bothered Jayce, unless he was trying to get some rest. "Glad she's Jaden's girl and not mine."
"I just wish I would've brought a change of clothes," Jaden griped from the driver's seat. "I'm getting the seat all wet."
"The chlorine'll eat a hole straight through it," Jayce teased, "but you can just cover it up with a few strips of electrical tape."
Jaden recently bought the SUV to celebrate a job promotion, so he hadn't had the vehicle long enough to stop fretting about every spilled drop of soda and lost french fry. Thus, one of the main reasons Jayce feared that Cynthia might be the one was because Jaden actually allowed her to smoke in the new SUV.
Jayce was tempted to bum a cigarette from Cynthia, just to see how his brother would react.
"What the hell?" Jaden exclaimed at the herd of deer wandering all over the road.
Jaden slowed the SUV down to a crawl, giving the deer ample time to get out of the way. They didn't. They just continued wandering around as if the SUV didn't exist.
"Why aren't they movin'?" Jaden wondered out loud.
"Why aren't they frozen...and staring into the headlights?" Cynthia chimed in.
"Why ain't they laughing at Jaden for buying this no-style, bitch- ass, dad-mobile," Jayce added.
"Get closer," Cynthia begged. "I want to see them up close."
"Yeah," Jayce tormented, "I want to watch them jump up on the hood!"
Unnerved by Jayce's suggestion about what might happen to his precious new SUV, Jaden nevertheless drifted closer to make Cynthia happy.
"Awwwwww, they're so cuuuuuuute," Cynthia cooed like an adorable little girl. "Aren't you all just sooooo cuuuuuu- COUGH-COUGH-HACK!"
Jayce exploded with laughter at Cynthia sounding like she'd transformed from a 4-year-old girl into a 70-year-old, hard-drinking chain- smoker. It was just too perfect. It cut straight through her fake upper- class, charm school graduate bullshit.
"What?!...What?!" she demanded at Jayce cracking up in the back seat.
"Nothing, Sweetie," Jayce rasped, making his voice croak to the point that it was painful to listen to. "Don't you never call me no 'woman' again, youse low class piece a' chit! I ain't no goddamned 'woman', I'm a mutherfuckin' LADY fer Chrissakes!! JADEN!!! Run over those fuckin' deer!! I'm late for my debutante ball, and we still gotta stop for some goddamned unfiltered cigarettes and deer jerky!! H-A-A-A-A-CK....PTOOEY!!"
Cynthia glared at Jayce. Jaden wanted to laugh, but he fought against it. The consequences for laughing at Cynthia for any reason tended to be unpleasant.
Jaden strategically decided to change the subject.
"So...should I try inching forward...or beeping the horn...or...?" he asked.
"Nooooooo, dooooooon't," Cynthia begged. "No one's coming, so let's just watch them for a minute.
All three occupants of the car were lifelong residents of Timbersburg, so deer on the road was hardly a new experience. However, none of the three had ever encountered deer this brave and stubborn.
Jayce drew breath to speak, only to suck in some of Cynthia's secondhand smoke. It was weird though. The smoke didn't smell like Cynthia's brand. It didn't really smell like anything.
"Hope I'm not losing my sense of smell," Jayce thought. "COVID's about the LAST thing I want to deal with right now."
Jayce looked around at the haze in the air. Cynthia's smoke was all through the back of the SUV. And it wasn't just lingering, it was gathering, growing thicker.
"I see antlers in the crowd, and they're comin' this way!" Jayce lied jokingly. "Think they'll scratch the paint, Bro?"
"Ha ha," Jaden replied humorlessly, wishing Cynthia would lose interest in the deer and let him blare the horn.
Jayce yawned and closed his eyes. If he'd kept them open, he would have seen the smoke around him suddenly mobilize and drift close to his mouth so that it could get sucked into his lungs. He might've also noticed "replacement smoke" stealthily rushing in freely around the bottom corners of the back windows to eagerly await Jayce's subsequent breaths. None of it was coming from Cynthia's cigarette at all. In fact, it was keeping Cynthia's smoke away, to stop it from ruining what it was trying to accomplish.
At the end of Jayce's yawn, he tried to reopen his eyes, only to find that he couldn't. And it wasn't just his eyelids. He was paralyzed. His muscles refused to engage.
"Am I having a stroke?!" Jayce screamed in his head since he could no longer engage his voice box.
Panic flooded through Jayce, making him frantic to get Jaden and Cynthia's attention. He tried to hyperventilate to alert them that some- thing was wrong, but his breathing remained slow and steady as if he'd finally managed to fall asleep in spite of Cynthia's unintentional efforts to the contrary.
"Wait....is this....sleep paralysis????" Jayce spitballed, trying to find an explanation that didn't end with him either dying or being permanently disabled.
"I'm scared shitless," Jayce observed, "so why isn't my heart beating out of control? Why ain't I on the verge of having a heart-"
Jayce felt a blast of euphoria wash over him, making his mind relax as much as his body.
"Jesus fucking CHRIST!!!" Jayce groaned mentally in response to the intense rush, which would've been far too intense for even a life-long hard drug user, let alone a dope lightweight like Jayce.
"Doooooon't stoooooooop," the dwindling awareness of Jayce Harris' hyper-stimulated mind begged into the darkness behind his eyelids.
"Surrender to it," a voice in that darkness called back, "and it'll go on and on and on......."
"Pleeeeeeeease," Jayce begged, reaching a special place that he wanted to stay for all eternity.
"You're going to feel something sliding up your shorts. It is nothing to worry about. It is only a tube possessed of rudimentary, instinct-based intelligence. His name is "Baby Blue", and he just wants to make you happy, and show you how much he likes you.
A distant part of Jayce had some questions and concerns, but when the promised sensation of movement arrived, Jayce just ignored it and savored his wonderful trip, even as Jayce felt the tube touch the tip of his penis.
The tube flowed over Jayce's dick and used light suction and a frictionless interior to efficiently engulf Jayce's manhood and pull itself all the way back to the base of his shaft, where the tiny rim around the end of the tendril (or Baby Blue's lips, if you will) inflated slightly and established a comfortable vacuum seal.
"If you're tryin' to get me hard, good luck," Jayce thought dimly, so under the influence of the Pit Fog that he couldn't even think about sex. His words were backed up by his lifeless dick, which was almost as flexible as the tube in which it was trapped.
"Why thank you, Jayce," Guile acknowledged politely, "what a nice thing to say. But do save your luck. I don't need it."
The vacuum-sealed baby blue tendril slowly expanded outward, widening, and forcing Jayce's penis to expand along with it. Then it gradually contracted before beginning the process anew.
"What're you doing?" Jayce's swimmy mind asked the void.
"I believe in helping fellow minorities to achieve their full growth potential," Guile explained just before the tendril expanded again.
"Whyyyyy?"
"Why do I believe in helping fellow minorities, or why am I forcing you to get hard?"
"....hard," Jayce moaned.
"Well, please keep this a secret, Jayce, unless you promise to tell me exactly how you'll start the conversation when you blab, but tonight you have met a cum vampire, and in exchange for how you're feeling right now, you'll be expressing your gratitude with a gratuity."
"Whuuuuuh?"
"I VANT...to SUCK...your SPERM, Jayce."
Jayce felt something wet slide between his nose and upper lip. It happened so quickly that even if Jayce could've opened his eyes, he would've only caught a glimpse of the morphing black tendril, whose tip had grown bristles to paint a clear liquid mustache on Jayce.
"What're you doing?" Jayce asked vacantly in response to feeling cool, tingly air travel up his nose alongside the Pit Fog.
"You're a very inquisitive young man," Guile remarked. "To answer your question, in spite of being in a rush, I'm so committed to giving you the best possible cum vampire experience that I am literally giving you the sweat off of my balls."
Jayce was far too gone to understand what Guile meant, not that it would've mattered. Jayce just kept on breathing the vaporizing ball sweat along with the Pit Fog, which had thickened and become less wispy. It now resembled its natural, unaltered form, with the foglike thickness that had earned it half of its name. The other half came from the place from which the Thrall excreted it.
Pit Fog starts out as sweat, but when Guile's mind touches it, the liquid explodes into a foglike chemical that Guile can guide and control, either making it hang in the air or move slowly, like actual fog, or making it move much, MUCH faster. The purpose of the Pit Fog is to pacify prey. It acts like an illicit drug.....ANY illicit drug.
The sole purpose of Ball Vapor is to arouse males sexually. Guile cannot mentally control Ball Vapor, but he can control its rate of vaporization, and thus choose whether to simply make a victim feel a little randy, or turn him into a fapping lunatic or a rutting animal. Guile must monitor the victim's exposure, however, since he can override Guile's choice of dosage merely by altering his breathing.
Unnoticed by either Jaden or Cynthia, Pit Fog flooded into the back seat area of the SUV and streamed up Jayce Harris' nose like an over- pressurized CPAP machine, pumping the drug into Jayce's brain and altering said drug to act in desirable ways, including temporarily ridding Jayce of his pesky inhibitions and narcotizing him into total compliance.
Jayce let out a long, slow, lusty groan as the Ball Vapor finally overtook the Pit Fog and made Jayce begin to grow inside the baby blue tube.
Now that his full cooperation had been secured, Jayce Harris suddenly regained control over his body. The first thing he did with it was to breathe, fast and deep, causing himself to surrender even more.
In spite of Jaden and Cynthia sitting directly in front of him, Jayce treated himself to a thrill by undoing his drawstring and pushing his shorts down to his ankles, exposing himself. It was an incredibly inappropriate thing to do, as it disrespected his brother and the woman he might one day ask to become a part of their family. But that didn't matter a bit to Jayce. He'd been temporarily relieved of the burdens of dignity and respect. All that mattered to him was freeing his cock from its aching, enjoyment-inhibiting confinement, and the giddy anticipation of getting caught by Jaden and Cynthia when they eventually noticed what he was doing.
Jayce smiled in gooned-out idiocy at the sight of his stiffening cock, which was wearing a living, baby blue condom with a reservoir tip that stretched all the way out of the window and off into the moonlit darkness. He couldn't stop giggling at the way it kept inflating and deflating like a perverted balloon, and how it made Jayce's cock get bigger, then smaller, then bigger, then smaller...
"Jaden, Cynthia, ya gotta take a look at this!" Jayce babbled in hilarity, the drugs having lowered his inhibitions down into negative numbers. Neither his brother nor his brother's girlfriend acknowledged Jayce's invitation.
Jaden shucked off his shirt, shoes, and socks. He needed to be naked. The baby blue tendril should've gotten in the way since it was flossing Jayce's right pant leg, but Baby Blue, sensing his partner's need, opened wide and released Jayce's tool. But before Jaden could react with alarmed disappointment, Baby Blue slipped out of the pant leg and came back up, devouring Jayce's swelling cock whole, exactly like the ravenous predator it truly was.
"Puttin' my ASS all over yo' SEAT, Bro!" Jayce called out drunkenly. "Gonna.....gonna...GONNA SHIT ALL OVER BACK HERE!!!"
Jayce laughed hysterically at his own unfunny joke, lying down completely naked across both seats, hugging himself, and rocking to the left and right during his unearned joygasm.
Jayce made himself even more comfortable by flinging his left leg over the headrest of the rear driver's side seat and resting his right knee against Jaden's seat, spreading his crotch wide for all the world to see, ...and touch, if they wanted. Jayce was so spaced-out that if anyone of either gender was to reach through the window and start fiddling around between Jayce's legs, he would've offered no resistance whatsoever, only a brainless, druggy, smile of enjoyment.
"What are you doing back there?" Jaden asked, turning around to find his fully-clothed brother tapping away on his phone.
"Huh?" the screened image asked.
"You keep bumping my seat," Jayden complained.
"Until you pay this thing off in fifty years, ain't it the BANK'S seat?" Fake Jayce asked. "I don't hear THEM complaining, only YOU. Ain't MY fault your lumbar controls are goin' crazy and making you think someone's bumping your seat. 'Course it probably means your electrical system is fryin', and it gonna burn up the whole SUV, and it ain't covered in your warranty."
"So, why did you bring your brother with us?" Cynthia asked, thinking about how much more romantic this situation would've been without 'The Little Brother' in the back seat.
" 'Cuz I HATE my damn self, THAT'S why," Jayden grumbled.
Jayce looked at the roof of the SUV and tried to focus through the ecstasy to figure out who Jaden had been talking to, but before he could reach the surface of his induced delirium, Baby Blue, feeling that Jayce's erection had been achieved, stopped acting like a penis pump, and turned into a milking machine.
"Oh my fucking GAAAAAAWWWWWD!" Jayce exclaimed in wide-eyed appreciation as Baby Blue went totally nuts, subjecting his cock to brain- frying contradictions of pressure, temperature, tempo, friction and direction, sometimes stroking him outright and sometimes twisting against his boner in ways that didn't seem possible. And best of all, in the same way that the black tendril can alter its external features to pleasure the anus of particular victims in order to stimulate them into compliance, Baby Blue can constantly adjust the surface of his interior, creating ribs, fins, lumps, rings, or anything that men or boys would want to feel rubbing against their boners.
"Do you think the deer are acting this way because of the weather?" Cynthia asked Jaden. "Maybe the heat is messing them up somehow."
"I guess," Jaden answered with frustration-concealing blandness.
"In another minute, you can blare the horn," Cynthia informed Jaden, losing interest in the spectacle and sensing Jaden's irritation.
"I'm glad you got to see this, Cyn," Jaden shared, "but I REALLY wish Stan and Barbara lived closer to the city, or at least closer to the interstate. Nobody drives this road if they don't HAVE to."
"They like it out here, but I don't think I could live this far from either Timbersburg or Johnsport. I'd hate to need emergency services and have to wait a half-hour for help to arrive."
"Besides," Jaden added, "Ain't nuthin' to DO out here!"
"YES, THERE IS!" Cynthia jokingly contradicted, knowing full well that Jaden was absolutely correct. "There's the Tanterock Spillway, where you can watch ducks walking around on the backs of the fish."
"Uh-huh," Jaden said dubiously. "Bet'cha can't name anything else."
"Uh....the aviary, the bird sanctuary, and the avian rescue."
"I'm only giving you credit for ONE...the aviary, MAYBE!" Jaden declared. "Dare you to name one more."
Cynthia squinted her eyes and thought hard.
"GOT IT!" she called out too excitedly.
"This should be good," Jaden snarked, knowing full well that there was NOTHING ELSE that Cynthia could possibly name.
"The Ferret Forest Family Campground and Picnic Area, the home of Blackie the Friendly Black-footed Ferret."
"Did you SERIOUSLY just try to slip Faggot Forest past me?"
"I hate it when people call it that," Cynthia pouted.
"Sorry, Hon. It's just...no one from this area calls it anything else. Even the gays call it that. It's not homophobic, it's just...since the place closed, which, by the way, means it's not something to DO, no one except you remembers its old name."
"I had a friend that went there once," Cynthia disclosed, wanting to avoid an argument.
"And how did HE call it?" Jaden inquired, foolishly not realizing what Cynthia was trying to do.
Cynthia glared.
"Did he get hisself killed?" Jaden asked.
"I'm sorry," Cynthia said with a wicked smile, "but did my highly- educated, suit and tie wearing boyfriend just say 'hisself'?"
"I'm wearing a swimsuit right now, not one of my business suits," Jaden reasoned. "I don't have to watch what I say until Monday."
"If you ever say 'hisself' during a meeting, you have to tell me so I can give you a hard time about it."
"Promise."
Jaden turned and looked back at Jayce, who hadn't spoken in too long.
"Hey Bro, what do you know about the Ferret Forest Family blah- blah-blah-blah-blah Black Ferret?"
"It's an awful place," the false image of Jayce Harris said sadly as it continued to appear to mess with its phone, "and you won't see any- thing you'll ever want to sketch."
"WHU-choo say?" Jaden asked, partially to tease Cynthia, and partially because Jaden had no fucking CLUE what Jayce was talking about.
"Actually, I've always wanted to go there," Jayce abruptly, humorously admitted, sounding like his usual self. "I'm gonna have to 'borrow' your SUV and check it out. Don't worry, I'm kinda sure no one will vandalize it."
"Or I could drive you up there right now and drop you off!" Jaden shot back. "Have some crazy dude BEAT yo' ass!"
Jaden expected a return swipe, but instead, his brother lowered his head and appeared to keep playing with his phone. Jaden didn't understand why his brother seemed so moody all of sudden, which was ironic, since his brother was actually writhing around on the back seats, reveling in sexual elation at an orgasm that kept building and building, refusing to release him, and making Jayce carry on like a coked-up whore in heat.
"Gonna shoot at the roof and make you a convertible!" Jayce yelled deliriously.
"It looks like we've reached the other side of the river Styx," Guile informed Jayce. "Please pay your ferryman generously. I accept all denominations, including pints, quarts, gallons, buckets, and drums."
"I'm cummin'!" Jayce raved loudly. "Fuckin' take it all! FUCKING SUCK ME DRY!"
"Oh, that I could, Jayce," Guile confessed. "Oh, that I could."
Jayce's sweaty, naked body slid and squeaked against the leather- like seats as he shook with primal intensity.
"YEAH!" Jayce screamed, lifting his ass off of the seat and fucking the air angrily as a blast of cum exploded out of him, so powerfully that Jayce felt his urethra stretch wider to accommodate the surge.
In the midst of the greatest sexual experience Jayce would ever experience, Jaden beeped the horn, giving Jayce the mistaken impression that big brother was cheering him on.
Achieving a personal best by FAR, Jayce kept thrusting his cock proudly into the air, making both it and Baby Blue's semen chute wiggle and bounce around while Jayce fired off five high-volume cumshots into the tubular unknown before he felt any sort of diminishment.
Stripped of his sexual tension and what little energy he had left after a long day of swimming and partying, Jayce stopped raising his ass and let it plop down on the seat. He rested, savoring the forced relaxation and body-wide satisfaction as he continued to pulse his cream into the tube. In seconds, he passed out on the seat, and the metamorphic drug in his system turned into something that would keep him that way until he and his fellow passengers were far enough away that they couldn't present any sort of threat to the wounded Thrall.
Even though Jayce was unconscious, Baby Blue continued to lovingly suckle him.
Several feet behind the guardrail of the opposing lane, concealed by a couple of trees and a flickering, failing, supernatural camouflage screen, Guile and Lecher waited impatiently while a precious load of cum was sucked through Baby Blue.
Lure was still thrashing around on the ground, spewing his lilac- colored lifeblood like an out-of-control sprinkler system. All of a sudden, he flipped over onto his stomach and instantly stopped convulsing.
"What's he doing?" Guile demanded of Lecher, "Lure's subliminal brain activity is going crazy, but since he's horribly brain-damaged, the signals are all getting crossed! I can't interpret this turmoil!"
"Something's fighting me for control over Lure's physical powers!" Lecher announced. "What the hell is it?"
"SHIT!" Guile screamed. "It's some sort of...emergency survival protocol! There's no information about it in my inherited memories! Lure's impending death activated the fucking thing, and now it's trying to take full control over the entire Thrall. We're being pushed out...WHILE WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF TRYING TO SAVE OURSELVES?!? WHAT THE HELL WERE THE MASTERS THINKING?!? We're not off-line, we're just a little damaged! We can still do our jobs! There's no need for the damned thing! This emergency survival mechanism is going to get us all killed!"
"It's trying to grab control over one of the tendrils!" Lecher warned.
"WHICH ONE?! WHICH ONE?!" Guile insisted. "I HAVE TO KNOW WHICH ONE!!!!"
The baby blue tendril was still sticking out of Lure's asshole and stretched all the way over to the back window of Jaden Harris' SUV, where it was determined to suck out every drop of his brother's jizz. The Thrall needed every single drop in order to survive, so Guile had no choice but to keep Baby Blue engaged until the last bit of Jayce's load flowed up Lure's ass, even if it meant that Lecher wouldn't be able to seal Lure's asshole and prevent any more tendrils from escaping.
"I don't KNOW which one!" Lecher shot back. "It's randomly shifting its attention, jumping from one tendril to another! I think it's trying to fool me,...keep me from figuring out which one it really WANTS!"
"Jumping around between WHICH tendrils?!"
"Red, yellow, orange, silver, white and black."
"Most of the dangerous ones," Guile sighed. "Try to keep fighting until you can retract Baby Blue."
"Thanks," Lecher growled. "I didn't know that already."
Guile stared at Lure's ass with mounting dread. Whichever tendril ended up slithering its way out from between the cheeks of his muscular bubble butt could only mean more problems.
"Please, not the silver one," Guile muttered to himself. "Any of the others, but not the silver one."
Deep inside of a Thrall's redesigned and repurposed anal cavity, the walls of a Thrall's "rectum" are lined with bulges that are about the size and shape of half a gumball. At the top of each of these "nubs" is a tiny hole. That is where the tendrils emerge from.
Tendrils are fully controllable prehensile strands of varying thicknesses that can extend FAR outside of a Thrall's body. They were created merely as benign tools, each with its own distinct function with regards to the accessing, management, and draining of victims.
However......
Just like this present-day Lure, Lures from ages past quickly learned that their love for their Master was not honestly reciprocated. In the old days, it was easy to convince a downtrodden young man to forsake his heterosexuality in favor of the insatiable, barely-restrainable homo- sexual urges of a Thrall. It was so easy that murdered Thralls could be easily replaced.
Lures, however, didn't want to be murdered and easily replaced, and their Guiles and Lechers usually agreed, so just like the ancient Asian farmers who taught themselves how to use their farming tools as weapons, the Thralls taught themselves how to use their tendrils and tongues to defend themselves and, if necessary, kill. And to keep that knowledge from fading and becoming lost with time, the Guiles used a method known only to themselves, Lechers, and the Thrall Masters to pass their defensive and offensive skills to subsequent generations of Thralls. The Guiles kept this a secret from the Thrall Masters, of course, for fear that They might arbitrarily put a stop to it. And when the Masters finally did find out what was going on behind Their backs......
"The Thrall Masters should not inflict punishment for disobeying a rule that should exist, but doesn't."
-An unnamed Guile (b. ?, d. ?)
......homosexuality suddenly mattered to the world, and NOT in a good way. Few young men, regardless of their circumstances, were willing to embrace "The (Lust) That Dare Not Speak Its Name". Thus, Masters learned to appreciate Their Thralls, if only to maintain the flow of Soul-Creation Energy into Their ancient, ravenous bodies, and to keep Themselves firmly tethered to a plane of existence that desperately wants all of Them gone.
In a self-serving display of appreciation and concern, the Thrall Masters redesigned Their Thralls. The screen was created, and Thralls were given even more strength and durability to compensate for the rise of violence towards gay men, which usually involved large groups of cowardly heterosexuals and closet cases who, emboldened by their numbers, hunted solitary gay targets, ...and Thralls are always solitary, at least on the outside.
The Thralls were also given the silver tendril.
"SHIT!" Lecher yelled. "IT'S GOT CONTROL OVER THE SILVER ONE!! I CAN'T STOP IT!!
"Only pessimists can accurately predict the future," Guile bemoaned, taking a moment to mentally recite his second favorite saying before leaping into action.
"TRY TO KEEP IT INSIDE OF HIS ASS!!" Guile ordered.
Guile strained himself and expanded the screen further from Lure's body, in the likely event that Lecher failed. It was murder, since Guile also had to maintain the screen that was creating the fake herd of deer and the one hiding the fact that the Thrall was feasting from Jayce Harris' cock.
Guile looked down at Lure's ass again, and then to Jayce Harris' semen, which was flowing through the part of Baby Blue that was suspended over the guardrail.
"C'mon-c'mon-c'mon-c'mon-c'mon!" Guile insisted as the spooge was finally sucked into Lure's dying body. Guile sent his point-of-view up Lure's ass to watch as the jizz reached Baby Blue's bulging nub and was funneled into the unknown, secret vastness of Lure's insides.
While this was happening, Baby Blue released Jayce's penis, zipped backward like a retractable tape measure and retreated up Lure's butt and into its nub, where the Thrall's biological processes would quickly cleanse and sterilize it, in case it was needed for immediate redeployment.
"YESSSSS!" Guile screamed triumphantly at the completion of a successful, life-saving hunt. But then he glanced over at the nub belonging to the silver tendril. The nub was undulating furiously as the tendril fought to obey the protocols and burst free.
Lecher struggled to contain the tendril with all his might. He wasn't motivated by Guile's orders, and he certainly wasn't doing it for the sake of forest preservation. Lecher's drive had EVERYTHING to do with the fact that there were witnesses a handful of yards away, and if the silver tendril got loose, there was no way they wouldn't notice it. And once they did, Lecher's dismal chances at survival would instantly drop to zero.
"NOOOOOO!" Guile and Lecher screamed in unison as the hyper-fast silver tendril popped out of the tiny hole at the tip of its nub and zipped towards the multiple penis-pleasuring structures that formed the entrance to Lure's "rectum".
Although Lecher cannot control Lure's body without his permission, as the being in charge of the Thrall's physical powers, Lecher can force Lure's asshole to unclench, loosen, or even gape, so that he can deploy tendrils quickly without needing to take the time to coordinate with Lure, which, in an emergency situation, could get the Thrall killed.
Fortunately, Lecher could also tighten Lure's asshole to a super- human degree, in order to prevent the release of tendrils or to pinch ones that had already been deployed, to limit their range. This particular option was only available to a Lecher in cases where his Lure was acting against their Thrall Master's orders, as Lure had been that night.... ...REPEATEDLY.
As Lecher tightened Lure's anal ring to its uppermost limit, he suddenly realized that Thralls were given the silver tendril without any modifications to their assholes. That could be a problem since, unlike the other tendrils, most of which were roughly the diameter of a drinking straw, the silver tendril was essentially an indestructible, super-fast, microthin wire.
Lecher wondered if Lure's superhuman sphincter could possibly clench hard enough to prevent it from wiggling its way through.
Lecher never found out. Without warning, the protocols focused their attention on making Lure's asshole relax, engaging Lecher in a tug of war. The outcome, however, was never in doubt. Keeping the tendril in check would've required every bit of tension that the sphincter could generate. By creating a modest effort to the contrary, the protocols won the battle.
The silver tendril shat itself through Lure's boy pussy, prepared to do what it did best: destroy.
The Thrall Masters, in Their out-of-the-blue eagerness to start protecting Their suddenly-valued property, ended up completely over- compensating. The Thralls were given a "sword", a silver strand that could whip around at impossible speeds, capable of holding off an army. And in case the Thrall should ever need to slaughter that army, any external section of the tendril can be made to adjust its shape. But unlike some of the other tendrils that can widen into a ribbon, the thin wire of the silver tendril can become thinner still...and much, much sharper.
The silver tendril streamed out of Lure's ass until it reached a length of approximately twelve feet. The last six feet sharpened and began to spin in the air like a fan, cleanly slashing through anything in its way. If Guile and Lecher had been actual physical beings, they would've been "blendered" into pulp. Once the tendril achieved its desired rotations per nanosecond, the "fan" angled back and began to oscillate around Lure's body, creating a protective "slice field".
It actually would've been a good defensive measure, provided that there weren't any obstructions around. But since Lure's body was surrounded by trees, all it was doing was CREATING A WHOLE LOT OF FUCKING NOISE FOR GUILE TO FUCKING SCREEN!!!!
"Why aren't they running away?" Cynthia asked, thoroughly bored with the deer, and getting angry at them for not dispersing at the sound of the SUV's horn.
"I dunno," Jaden replied, blaring his horn twice in succession before flashing his high beams on and off repeatedly. "I've never seen deer act like this. Should I get out and try to scare them off?"
"Uh, no. You won't be doing that," Cynthia informed him, reaching down and tapping at the GPS screen. "Nothing's behind us. Reverse us into a three-point turn, and let's take this route here.
"We're on a two-lane road with guardrails on both sides," Jaden chuckled. "It's lookin' to be a FIVE point turn....maybe seven."
Jaden shifted into reverse, but although he meant to use the SUV's touch screen, he checked the mirrors out of habit.
Jayce wasn't in the back seat.
Jaden turned around and stared in disbelief at his brother, who was still sitting there, continuing to casually play with his phone.
"What the hell?!?!" Jaden yelled, quickly looking again at the rear view mirror to find that Jayce's reflection still wasn't there.
Jaden turned back towards his brother again, but this time, Cynthia joined him. To their astonishment, Jayce's naked body was lying across the back seat.
"JAYCE!" Jaden yelled, hopping out of the SUV, hustling around to the other side and opening the back passenger door.
"Jayce! JAYCE!" Jaden yelled, looking for any sign that this was another one of his little brother's stupid jokes.
Jayce didn't react, causing Jaden to try everything Hollywood had ever taught him about waking someone who'd lost consciousness. When that didn't work, he brought his ear down to Jayce's mouth.
"I can hear him breathing!" Jaden announced, sounding relieved.
"Do you know how to take his pulse?"
"No, but I know how to put my hand on his heart," Jaden announced, immediately kicking himself for coming off sounding like a prick. "I can feel it beating!"
"Why's he naked?!" Cynthia asked as if Jaden had been 'in on the plan', or Jayce had sent him a text in advance, informing him that he was going to play a vulgar, trashy, low-class practical joke on the woman Jaden intended to propose to.
Jaden suppressed a well-deserved: "How the FUCK should I know?"
"I checked the mirror and I didn't see Jayce in it! But when I turned to the back seat, there he was, sitting there with clothes on, still playing on his phone!" Jaden explained, feeling his sense of reality starting to slip. "But when we both looked, he's lying here butt nekkid and knocked out. I don't know what the fuck's goin' on! THIS IS CRAZY!!"
"Jaden, was he doing something back there?" Cynthia asked, turned around in her seat, looking at Jayce's groin.
Despite his concern for Jayce, there was a large part of Jaden that wanted to take a minute to dress his thinner, younger, more athletic, and apparently better-hung brother, ...or at least put his damned shorts back on! Mostly because he wanted to be gallant, and didn't want his girl thinking his parents raised him and Jayce wrong, but also because Jaden's brother was seriously outshining him.
Jaden reached in, getting closer to his little brother's junk than he would've liked as he ran his hand along the interior of the back seat, feeling for wetness. Surreptitiously, he did the same thing with Jayce's right hand.
"Nothing," Jaden verified, determined not to say the word for what he'd been looking for. This situation was uncomfortable enough. Using the appropriate, inappropriate terminology would only make it worse.
"He shouldn't be that...big, right?" Cynthia asked. "Unless he was masturbating, right?"
"He could've just been thinking about girls and stuff, then passed out and...went soft," Jaden offered after experiencing a body-wide cringe in response to Cynthia's unwelcome candor.
"Did he do anything at the party?" Cynthia speculated, "He smells a little like-"
"Yeah, he and Stan's oldest went off and smoked some weed," Jaden confessed. "I didn't say anything to him about it because Stan doesn't care, and I wanted Jayce to have a good time. But 'no', before you ask, I didn't smoke any. And even if someone would've offered me anything harder, like say...a hallucinogen, you know I would've said 'no'."
"I know," Cynthia lied.
"I've done acid before, Cyn, but those hallucinations weren't even close to looking as real as my brother did in the back seat! This is just...WEIRD!"
"Jaden, I need you to do something for me," Cynthia blurted, "And if YOU don't do it, I'M going to do it."
"What?" Jaden queried, certain he wouldn't like the answer.
"I can see...fluid...around his...dick hole."
"Yeah, I see it. Pre-cum, probably. Why?"
"When you looked back, before he was naked and lying down, was his penis out?"
"I don't think so, but I might've missed it. His hands were typing shit, though, so I don't think he was jerking off," Jaden supposed, abandoning his attempts to remain 'gentlemanly'.
"Jaden, I need you to...squeeze him, to see if he ejaculated recently," Cynthia explained with drop-dead seriousness.
In any other circumstance, Jaden would've responded with an instant "the FUCK you want me to do?", but given that his brother was naked and unresponsive in the back seat of his SUV, and seeing as how Jaden had just told the woman he loved something truly hard to believe, Jaden was really concerned that Cynthia was thinking that he and Jayce were playing a highly-offensive, gutter-level practical joke on her, the kind that raises a HUGE red flag with any woman about to receive a marriage proposal.
Jaden looked at Jayce's mouth. If this were a joke, Cynthia's request would've totally made Jayce crack up, or break character altogether.
"Jayce," Jaden said into his brother's ear, not caring that Cynthia could hear everything he was saying, "if this is a joke, I'm gonna need you to stop it...now. I'll try to let this shit go, but...you really need to end this...right NOW...before this goes any further, or I'm gonna have a REAL hard time forgiving you for this."
Jayce didn't react to Jaden's words at all.
"Okay, then," Jaden grumbled.
Jaden reached under Jayce's testicles and put pressure on his brother's taint, just in front of his asshole. While maintaining that pressure, he pulled his finger forward, to shove any remaining semen closer to the tip of Jayce's penis. Jaden tried to ignore the feeling of his brother's balls responding to his touch by contracting, traveling along the side of Jaden's hand.
Jaden pulled his hand out from under Jayce's scrotum and gently but firmly pinched the base of his brother's penis and pulled upward. A white glob of semen arose from Jayce's piss slit. Jaden cleaned it off with his thumb so that Cynthia wouldn't have to look at it any longer than necessary, however the fuck long THAT was, and wiped it on the front of his swimsuit.
"Jaden, we gotta go, NOW!" Cynthia ordered, turning around.
"Why?"
Cynthia didn't answer. She just stared at the deer.
"Cynthia?!"
"Cynthia opened her door, hopped out, and stormed right up to the nearest deer. It appeared to run away, along with all the others in the immediate vicinity. And when Cynthia waded further into the herd, it looked as if she was surrounded by a personal no-deer force field. She stopped... and waited."
"What are you DOING?" Jaden yelled, running towards Cynthia and discovering that the deer were getting out of his way as well."
"Don't you see?" Cynthia insisted.
"Yeah, I understand! They'll get out of the way if we try to drive through. Now let's get back to the car before they bolt...and hurt us!"
"They can't!" Cynthia shouted. "They're like Jayce sitting in the back seat! THERE ARE NO DEER AROUND US!! IT'S A TRICK!!"
Jaden froze. His girlfriend just said something completely batshit crazy....but it made perfect sense.
"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND, CYN?!" Jaden yelled. "DO YOU-?"
Without warning, Jaden cut right and poured on the speed. A deer had gotten too close to Jaden, and he strategically waited until the last possible second before sprinting straight at it. It ran away, of course, but there were other deer in the way, so it slowed down just enough that Jaden was able to smack it on its ass....and watch his hand pass right through it.
"AIN'T NO TRICK....IT'S A TRAP!" Jaden exclaimed as both he and Cynthia ran for the car.
Jaden had just about reached the door when his right foot landed wrong on the slick asphalt. He should've just taken the fall, but he made the mistake of trying to keep on his feet, and ended up pulling an inner thigh muscle. Jaden went down hard, slamming his bare left knee on the road as he fell.
"Jaden!" Cynthia screamed.
"STAY IN THE CAR! LOCK YOUR DOOR AND THE BACK ONES! GONNA NEED A MINUTE!"
Jaden forced himself to endure the agony as the shock gave way to the pain. He needed to get to his feet, but his knee and groin weren't cooperating.
"It's like my foot forgot how to run," Jaden groaned in his head, trying to account for his stroke of bad luck. "What are the odds?"
Jaden would never know that the odds of him falling and hurting himself at that moment were exactly 1 in 1, and that he and his brother had been unwittingly drafted into a chess game that had raged for centuries. Jaden was a knight, Cynthia was a pawn, and although he wouldn't have liked the double-meaning, Jayce was a queen.
"LECHER, I'M SCREENING TOO MUCH!!! THE TRUTH IS SLIPPING THROUGH! GET CONTROL OF THAT TENDRIL!!"
"I CAN'T!!" Lecher roared. "STOP SOUND-SCREENING THE SILVER TENDRIL AND CONCENTRATE ON MAKING THE DEER APPEAR TO RUN AWAY!! WE GOT WHAT WE NEEDED, SO LET THE RACKET SCARE THEM OFF!! WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO DO, FILE A POLICE REPORT AND NOTIFY THE MEDIA BECAUSE A NOISE IN THE WOODS FRIGHTENED THEM?!?!"
Guile would never admit it, but Lecher was right. If Guile hadn't been so busy trying to do almost all of the work by himself, he would've naturally figured out the solution long before Lecher did.
The driver's window opened, and Cynthia called out.
"Jaden, they're leaving."
Cynthia was correct. Jaden watched as the deer pretended to jump over the southbound guardrail and presumably ran down the embankment, or disappeared into thin air as soon as they were out of view.
"We already know they're not real!" Jaden moaned. "Why keep up the lie?"
"Maybe it didn't see us figure that out!"
"Gotta....get....outta here," Jaden grunted, trying to focus past the pain and get to his feet, "before it...springs the trap."
"I think it already did."
"What do you mean?"
"I think it already got what it wanted, from Jayce," Cynthia theorized. "I'm guessing it was using illusions to distract us so that it could get sperm from him. That's why he's oozing cum, but you never saw him masturbating. Can I come out and help you now?"
"No, stay there, in case you're wrong!" Jaden instructed, terrified that if she came out, he wouldn't be able to protect her. "What do you think it was?"
"You'll laugh."
"Honey, ain't NUTHIN' gonna make me laugh right now."
"A succubus."
Jaden almost laughed, but in an agonized, 'funnybone' sort of way. But the more he thought about it, the more he had to admit that for an insane theory, it really would explain most everything.
"Or maybe a slutty female vampire?" Cynthia joked, trying to add some levity to the strange situation.
"Well I'M thinking it was a homosexual vampire from The Ferret Forest Family Campground and Picnic Area, the home of Blackie the Friendly Black-footed Ferret."
"You actually remembered all that?" Cynthia complimented.
"Dumb people with no memory don't get scholarships to-"
The deafening sound of grinding and chopping filled the air, making Cynthia shriek in surprise and causing Jaden to jolt, subjecting him to even more pain, although far less than Kenny Miller endured from his fall, which occurred about fifty yards away.
Cynthia jumped out of the SUV and ran to help her boyfriend. What- ever was causing the noise, it was coming from the woods, and it was far too close.
Deep within the Thrall's altered physiology, which was far more vast than Lure was permitted to know, Jayce Harris' semen was tricked into giving up its secret treasure.
When a man ejaculates into a woman, the semen realizes where it is, and promptly releases all of its Soul-Creation Energy into the woman's uterus, where it forms an energy field and awaits fertilization. If fertilization is successful, the required amount of energy flows from the field into the egg, completing the male's metaphysical obligation towards his matching genetic contribution, and mixing with the female's S.C.E., which is already inside the egg, to form what is assumed to be the human soul, or life-force, if you will. Since there is always S.C.E. left over, as the semen provides for the possibility of twins, triplets, etc., that energy simply drifts out of the woman and into the ether from which it originated. This also happens if fertilization doesn't occur at all.
In the case of Jayce and the Thrall, however, there was no egg. There was only an internal organ that was painstakingly designed to fool the semen into thinking it was inside an ovulating female's reproductive system. The sperm encountered a ridiculous number of "eggs" and fertilized them all, insuring that the organ would absorb every single bit of the S.C.E. released into the "uterus".
Under normal circumstances, the energy "donated" by Jayce would've been channeled into another internal organ, one designed for the storage and easy extraction of the S.C.E. by the Thrall Master. In this situation, however, all of it went straight into the Thrall's healing processes, to protect the Master's awful investment.
The potent energy super-charged the Thrall's regenerative abilities and stopped Lure from hemorrhaging, as well as clearing his "lungs" of the lilac-colored liquid that did far more for the Thrall's body than simply fulfill the relatively minimal functions of human blood.
Once the Thrall was figuratively out of the woods, the remaining Soul-Creation Energy devoted itself to the problem of Lure's pulped brain mass, and healing it appeared to be just as excruciating for Lure as when he caused it. The Thrall's head lifted off of the ground, exposing Lure's face, which had contorted into a mask of pure agony. He might have been screaming, but if he was, the whirring and crunching of the silver tendril made it impossible to hear.
"Looks like your new and better physical support guy doesn't like you any more than I do, Lure," Lecher gloated, fighting against the protocols so that he could force Lure's altered eardrum to ignore the cacophony and only transmit the vibrations of Lecher's "voice" to whatever remained of Lure's brain section. "Jesus, is he even trying to shunt any of the pain? I wouldn't either, but it took me at least a few hours to hate you this much. This guy hasn't even been exposed to your shitty personality yet. Wow!"
"I curse the Thrall Master who came up with this ill-conceived, ineffectual, outdated emergency protocol!!" Guile shrieked telepathically at high volume to overcome the enduring uproar created by the out of control silver tendril, which fought to continue creating a whirling shield around Lure, in spite of all the trees in the way, and Lecher's efforts to regain control over it.
"Guile! Whatever's left of the Soul-Creation Energy is focused on fixing Lure's brain section, but I'm still too damaged to chart his brain-section and figure out what it's working on!"
"The fucking protocol is working on ITSELF, performing diagnostics and self-checks. HOW VERY HELPFUL! I'm SO glad it's siphoning the energy WE collected and is putting it to such good use! After all, it must be in perfect working order if it is to continue RUINING EVERYTHING!"
"Tell me when those diagnostics and self-checks are done."
"They just finished. Now it's....oh, no....it's scrounging through Lure's brain-jelly, trying to use whatever jumbled information it can find to figure out Lure's survival needs and capabilities in order to formulate a plan to deal with his present circumstances...which will NO DOUBT be based on a mindless, pre-set list of rigid options that cannot be deviated from, regardless OF those fucking present circumstances!!"
Guile planted both of his hallucinatory palms on his forehead and wandered a few feet away, passing through the silver tendril's lethal slice field, and the violent blizzard of wood chips that was filling the air.
"What the protocols AREN'T doing," Guile screamed, "is backing the fuck off! Had WE been given control, instead of the protocols, the S.C.E. would've gone exactly where we needed it to go! We would've been healed enough to sneak aboard that SUV and let them drive us back to Timbersburg! And then you and I could've hunted there, all night long, to try to mitigate the master's anger. Instead, OUR jobs have been handed over to a clueless, robotic CHECKLIST that isn't even trying to consult us as it wastes power MAKING SAWDUST!! THIS IS HOW MUCH THE MASTERS RESPECT US!!"
Guile's point of view drifted away from Lure and Lecher, seeking a much-needed moment to clear his head. He decided to go find out why the dark green SUV was still there.
"The screen failed a few minutes ago," Guile grumbled. "Why aren't they rushing the boy to the Timbersburg Medical Center? With my luck, they're probably waiting for an ambulance. Maybe the protocols will make the Thrall ask to be checked out by the EMTs."
Guile reached the guardrail and watched the girl help the driver back into the SUV.
"Damn, missed a drop," Guile lamented upon seeing the tiny smear of Jayce's cum on his brother's swim trunks.
Guile looked down at the bleeding scrape marks on Jaden's legs.
"My, that was certainly....unlucky," Guile thought.
Guile felt a wave of concern. Something wasn't quite right. He took a good, good look at Jaden Harris, and noticed stuff he'd missed during his initial evaluation because of his weakness. But now that Guile was a tiny bit stronger, due to the minimal amount of S.C.E. scraps that the protocols had flung his way, Guile could see much more, and what he was seeing was certainly unusual. Some might even say 'statistically unlikely'.
Guile decided to alter his perception in order to view the world in a way that no Guile should ever need to. It was a drain on what little resources Guile had regained, but Guile HAD to know!
"It can't be," Guile thought to himself as his perception began to change, "but if it is, that could mean-"
"Guile, HELP!!!!!" Lecher screamed, interrupting Guile's perception shift.
"My, what bad luck to be summoned away at this exact instant," Guile mused sarcastically as he floated back to Lure and Lecher. "Since I wasn't able to confirm my hypothesis due to an unfortunate distraction, I guess I'll just traipse away and forget ALLLLL about this. La-dee-da, la-dee-da, la-dee-dee."
"You should've just let me examine your droppings, Reality Itself!" Guile scoffed at his unseen enemy. "I know you're here! Not everyone is as flighty, unfocused, and disorganized as YOU!"
"GUILE!!" Lecher screamed again upon watching him approach far too slowly.
"YES, Lecher, I can hear you," Guile groused. "What unlucky, statistically-improbable problem has you so....*"
CRACK!!!
Guile looked in horror at the trunk of a huge cedar. The silver tendril had sliced away enough of it that the tree was coming down. It was aimed at the roadway, which didn't matter to Guile at all. What DID matter was that the tree was going to crush the Thrall, first.
"MAKE IT GET UP!!" Guile shouted to Lecher, who was just standing there doing nothing. "GET IT OUT OF THE WAY!!"
Lecher gave Guile the finger and turned away. Guile correctly assumed that Lecher could do nothing.
It was over.
"I shouldn't have left," Guile mourned regretfully. "I should've stayed and worked the problem. How inexcusably flighty, unfocused, and disorganized of me.
Jaden started the engine and put it in drive. That's when he noticed the cedar, which had already begun to fall.
Jaden stomped the accelerator, causing the tires to spin on the wet road, and costing Jaden just enough time and distance to make him question whether or not he could beat the tree before it crashed onto the road, or the SUV.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?" Cynthia screamed as Jaden stomped on the brakes, put it in reverse, and pressed the accelerator with a lot more control. It was the right decision, but it caused the unconscious Jayce to slide forward off the seat.
At the last second, the cedar hit another tree that changed the direction of the cedar's fall. Even if Jaden hadn't floored the accelerator and made the tires spin, he still never would've made it.
"Jayce!" Jaden yelled, hobbling painfully out of the SUV to once again check on his brother. Cynthia jumped out, too, and helped Jaden lift Jayce back onto the seat and raise him into a sitting position while they both stole glances at the huge downed tree, twenty feet from the front bumper, with its limbs still bouncing up and down from the impact. They also kept an eye on the newly-created opening in the forest.
"I can't tell if he hit his head!" Cynthia informed Jaden, who was busy pulling a seat belt across his brother's body.
"That noise stopped," Cynthia noted. "Whatever was making it, I hope it's gone now!"
"Should we call 911?" Jaden asked frantically. "With the road blocked, it'll take us forever to get back to Timbersburg, and even longer to get to Johnsport!"
Cynthia shut the front passenger door and hopped in back with Jayce.
"I'm going to stay back here and keep Jayce from slumping over! I'll call 911 for instructions while you reverse us the hell OUT of here!"
"Sounds good!" Jaden agreed, then shut the car door. He limped around the back of the SUV and was about to put his hand on his door handle, when he heard something rustling in the forest.
Jaden Harris watched in fascinated terror as a black figure emerged from the trees and effortlessly stepped up and over the guardrail with inhuman grace.
Jaden's lungs and throat wanted to grunt in surprise, but Jaden was having some trouble coming to grips with the constant barrage of strangeness, so nothing came out. Behind him, in the SUV, Cynthia was having a LOT more success!
Jaden felt as if he'd just stepped into his worst nightmare.
Guile was feeling the same way.
The cedar was falling, promising to land on the backs of Lure's legs.
If a Lure and a Lecher were both at full power and working together, they could've super-accelerated and focused the silver tendril, forcing it to instantly pulverize the section of tree that was threatening to crush them.
For many reasons, it wasn't possible for that scenario to play out with this particular Thrall.
As it fell, the cedar hit the other tree, which not only shifted the cedar's downward trajectory towards the path of Jaden Harris' SUV, it also ensured that the cedar would land on the back of Lure's head.
"USE HIS TONGUE!" Guile screamed in desperation at Lecher, "USE THE VIOLET TENDRIL! MOVE HIM...QUICKLY!!"
Lecher was still turned away from Guile, though. And in lieu of a reply, he let his shoulders drop and looked up in despair.
Without warning, the silver tendril suddenly retracted. Then, Lure's elbows drew back and he slammed his fingers into the earth. Lecher felt the activation of the Thrall's ability to make his skin completely frictionless just before he pushed off with his hands and slid backward along the muddy earth to safety.
At the exact moment that the tree crashed onto the marshy soil, friction returned to Lure's flesh, and he once again assaulted the ground. This time, though, instead of driving his fingers into the mud to create a push-off point, he spread his fingers wide to distribute the force of a superhumanly powerful palm slap that caused the face-down Thrall to arise into a standing position.
"Lecher, did you do that?" Guile interrogated.
"No, I'm completely locked out!" Lecher admitted, turning a moment of elation into a moment of dread.
Witnesses were just a few feet away. If Lecher couldn't physically control the Thrall....
The Thrall's head was whipping around in wide-eyed confusion. Guile tried to reach inside Lure's mind to find out what was happening. He didn't like what he saw.
"Well?" Lecher asked.
"The fucking survival protocols have restored a tiny amount of Lure's brain, and just like Lure himself, they're using it to make bad decisions. They're making him.....NO!"
Now that the Thrall was no longer in danger of dying, the protocols decided that it should leave in all due haste, and since this Thrall apparently had the ability to fly, the protocols directed it to go some- where with a lot of space for the Thrall to spread its wings: The road.
Guile only had one card to play, and it sucked.
"WE ARE THE GUILE AND LECHER FOR THIS THRALL, AND IN THE NAME OF THRALL MASTER LADISLAV KASCHAK OF THE TETHERED ONES, WE ORDER YOU TO STOP!"
The Thrall walked straight through Guile for the second time that evening. Guile desperately tried to throw up a screen, but he had neither the time nor the mental energy to do it.
Five steps later, The Thrall emerged from the woods and stepped into both the moonlight and the limelight, where he was immediately spotted by Jaden Harris and Cynthia Keim.
Lecher was freaking out. So was Guile, but it was laced with admiration. Jaden Harris was right. This whole situation had been a trap, and Jaden, Jayce, and Cynthia fell right into it! But it wasn't just ONE trap, it was TWO, and Guile and Lecher were now the prey! And just to add insult to injury, at least as far as Guile was concerned, the trap HE set was lame and done-to-death, but the trap he'd fallen into....ROCKED HARD!
"Even if we regained control RIGHT NOW," Guile strategized to him- self while Lecher was reduced to horrified ranting, "I couldn't salvage this disaster. If it were just the males, we could take them into the woods one at a time and Entangle them. But the girl complicates everything. Since I was put into the 'statistically unlikely" scenario of being too drained to put up a screen, there's nothing else I can do to her, except nauseate her with Pit Fog and drive the girl away, which accomplishes nothing! And the only one of us capable of murdering her is in the 'statistically IMPOSSIBLE' situation of being 'away from his desk'!"
"It's....too perfect!" Guile marveled aloud in abject horror, "It's an absolutely flawless set-up!"
A Thrall was publicly exposed, which was one of the greatest crimes that a Thrall could commit, whether accidentally or on purpose. Typically, a death sentence was immediately carried out for three of the four beings that comprise it.
"It's not our fault!" Lecher wailed in anguish. "We did everything we COULD to stop this from happening! It's all Lure's fault...Lure's and that damned survival protocol that the Masters installed! But WE'LL get the blame for this!! WE'LL pay the price for this! IT'S NOT FAIR!!!"
The Thrall and Jaden stared at each other from a distance that was far too close for Jaden's liking. But the more Jaden examined the monster, the more he realized that he wasn't looking at a monster at all.
"Is that a....naked kid...covered in mud and...flat black paint?" Jaden asked himself, wondering if all of this was just some sort of joke, or maybe an exhibitionistic kid desperate to expose himself, but doing it disguised to avoid arrest.
Part of Jaden wanted to get in the kid's face and demand to know if he was responsible for what happened to Jayce. Another part of Jaden wanted to approach the kid and try to pass his hand through him, just to make sure he was real. Fortunately for Jaden, he chose the least lethal of the many bad ways to deal with the situation he was in: talking to it.
"Look, kid," Jaden said, finding his voice and managing to make it sound a lot braver than he felt, "whatever you're out here doing, we don't want no part of it. Just back off so I can turn my car around, okay? I promise I won't tell the police about you, but I am gonna have to call about this tree, so you might want to go do your naked ninja stuff some- where else."
While Jaden waited for a response, he tried to get a good look at the boy's face, but between the moonlight-swallowing flat black paint (or black make-up), as well as the long black hair covering the kid's features, Jaden couldn't see anything.
The kid just stood there without saying anything.
"Look, I ain't got time for your horror movie bullshit," Jaden said firmly, opening his car door. "Gotta take my brother to the hospital right now, so if you need me to send you some help or some-?"
The kid opened his mouth, but not to speak. He stuck out his tongue, which was just as matte black as the rest of him.
"Yeah...real fuckin' funny, kid. Great blackface. Thorough job you did there. All the way. Hope you have fun scrubbing it off of your-"
Jaden stopped speaking and stared in stunned silence as the tongue extended towards him for a distance of two feet before splitting down the middle and flinging itself back over the boy's shoulders. More tongue kept gushing out of his mouth, enabling the two forks to merge again behind the kid's neck and pour down his back. The stream flowed into the crack of his ass and split again after coming up from underneath the kid's balls. Once the forks rejoined at his pubes, the tongue finished its journey by running up the boy's abdominals and chest and merging with the material around his neck.
"I ain't seein' this. I just ain't...." Jaden mumbled in horrified fascination.
Jaden hadn't seen anything, yet!
A violet cord came out from behind the kid and wound around his abs and chest repeatedly, fastening his strange tongue garment to his body, and making him look like he was wearing some kind of Halloween S&M corset. Once it was secured, the tongue material strapped to his back flowed outward, around the violet laces, and came back together before fanning out and forming two enormous black wings.
"The HELL with this!" Jaden shouted, turning and jumping into the SUV, where he realized that Cynthia had been screaming at him all this time to get back inside.
Jaden started the engine and gave it a little too much gas, causing the engine to roar and giving the protocols the impression that Jaden was announcing his intention to attack the Thrall with his vehicle.
The silver tendril shot out of the Thrall's ass again, through a strategically placed hole in the Thrall's makeshift wing harness. It whipped around in the air behind it at the tendril's usual speed, striking the guardrail and causing a non-stop explosion of sparks, as well as an agony-inducing, high-pitched metal-on-metal ringing.
Jaden put the SUV in reverse and pushed the pedal with recently- learned restraint as he ignored the rear-view camera feed on the screen in front of him and instead opted for the "old school" approach of twisting around in his seat and looking through the back and side windows.
Now that the metal box was in motion, the Thrall's protocols viewed it as an even greater potential threat. To get a better idea of what form that danger might take, Lure's brain was scanned, revealing hundreds of jumbled TV and movie clips involving vehicles chasing people, and in many instances, ramming them or running them over. Accepting those images as Jaden Harris' goal, the silver tendril streamed towards the SUV, armed with Lure's knowledge concerning how to stop the rolling metal box.
The tendril swept the roadway from right to left, at a height of little more than an inch from the asphalt, slicing cleanly through all four of Jaden's tires, and giving him and Cynthia an unpleasant elevator-drop sensation. However, Jaden was so determined to get away from the monster that he continued backing up, ignoring the flat tires that were flopping around and slapping against the interiors of the wheel wells.
"JUST KEEP GOING, JUST KEEP GOING!" Cynthia squealed, in case Jaden needed help figuring out whether or not to flee from the monster.
Since the metal box hadn't stopped moving, it was still considered a threat, so the silver tendril lashed out along the roadway again, but this time, it went up under the SUV and started spinning around in the engine bay.
Cynthia and Jaden grabbed their ears in response to the sound of hoses and electrical wires being turned to dust and an engine block being scored hundreds of times per second.
Guile and Lecher materialized directly in front of the Thrall.
"STOP DOING THAT!!" Guile ordered, "SPARKS AND GASOLINE MAKE FIRE, YOU COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE IDIOT LIGHT!!"
As if on cue, Guile heard a "WHUMPH!" noise beneath the SUV, followed by the quick spread of flames across the growing puddle. Yet in spite of this development, the survival protocols continued to spin the silver tendril against the engine, feeding the growing fire.
"We have to get that fire stopped!" Guile barked at Lecher.
"Why?? If the whole thing goes up, it'll get rid of the evidence that Lure and his new and better body buddy just created to attract the attention of all the shadowy, black-budget government organizations out there that would just LOVE to create an army of Thralls for reasons that have nothing to do with sucking cock!"
"Because once the occupants realize the SUV is on fire, they won't know what to do! The adult male is injured, and the female is badgering him to remain inside! And if they DO leave the vehicle, the only place they have to flee is down an embankment, which they won't, since the young male, the one we fed off of, is still unconscious! And he'll remain unconscious, because I've now been locked out too, meaning I can't dismiss the drugs, meaning they'll stay in his system!"
"So? The three of them are part of the evidence I mentioned! Let 'em burn! I don't see the problem."
"The problem is that I was able to push into Mike Pearsons' mind just enough to see that he's socially awkward and terrified of negative attention. But if anyone dies out here, a few minutes and a few feet away from his encounter with a MONSTER...a monster he failed to report, GUILT will make him go to the police, and bring Kenny Miller's cell phone!"
"Why do you even care?" Lecher growled. "I thought you'd given up all hope of surviving the Master's wrath!"
"And I thought that you HADN'T!" Guile snapped back.
"Wait...you told Mike that your text conversation with him would be read by the police, so why do you care about that?"
"I know that this will come as a shock to you, Lecher, but I LIED! I used it to explain why I wouldn't give Mike the answers he wanted, and it also gave Lure the false impression that you and I were totally on board with his plan, which was necessary since I obviously wasn't really trying all that hard to get Mike out of Tom Daggen's car. If I'd wanted Mike to get out of that car, he would've!"
"So you bypassed your inability to lie to Lure by lying to Mike, instead," Lecher deduced, picking a terrible time to play Differently Abled Detective, "and you used tricky phrasing to conceal the fact that you 'basically' 'tried', but you didn't give it your ALL."
"Correct," Guile congratulated. "So now I want you to 'thoroughly' 'succeed' in PUTTING OUT THAT FIRE!"
"Guile, this is turning into the WOODSTOCK OF ALL SHITSHOWS! Live witnesses are more dangerous than a boy genius who's stupid enough to go to the freaking TIMBERSBURG police with a monster story! There are more bigfoot stories here THAN PEOPLE, Guile! Forget about Pearson and let the fire take care of the loose ends!"
"NO!!" Guile screamed, "There can be NO body count! I'd give you a little mental 'incentive' to REMEMBER YOUR PLACE, Lecher, or stop projecting you out here so you can sit quietly in the dark, totally locked out from the Thrall, BUT I NEED YOU!!"
"Here's a great idea for incentivizing me: TELL ME WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME!!!"
"I have a plan now!" Guile reluctantly admitted, knowing full well that Lecher couldn't even be persuaded to jump out of the way of a speeding train without an exhaustive explanation as to WHY. "I'm certain that I can SAVE US!"
"WHAT?!?!" Lecher screamed, not needing Guile's help in order to make his brain melt. "A PLAN?!? You didn't have one of those BEFORE every- thing fell to shit, so how can you have one NOW?!?"
The silver tendril stopped attacking the engine of the SUV and returned to its nub. It looked like the Thrall's ass was sucking up a long strand of angel hair pasta.
For a split second, Guile allowed himself the hope that the survival protocols might deal with the fire, but the enduring mix of frustration, bewilderment, and panic on the Thrall's face were less than encouraging.
"Only pessimists can accurately predict the future," Guile repeated before turning to Lecher. "The protocols are confused! Maybe their guard is down! Grab the white tendril and GET THAT FIRE OUT! I'll explain why later!
"YEAH, YOU WILL!" Lecher snarled angrily.
"And remember, the WHITE one, NOT the aqua blue one!" Guile commanded.
"Stop patronizing me, you fucking control freak! I GODDAMNED KNOW how to put out a flammable liquid fire!"
"...and please....HURRY!" Cynthia pleaded before hanging up.
"Jayce?" Jaden said, shaking his little brother and giving him some light smacks on his cheeks, "C'mon, Bro. Gotta wake up now!"
"They said they'll be here in ten minutes," Cynthia offered needlessly, since Jaden's upper body was in the back seat area, and his ear was close enough to the phone to hear both sides of the conversation.
"Oh my God," Cynthia yelled, "the car's on fire!"
"No....I told you....it's just the engine heat burning off the fluids spraying on it. There are too many other fluids leaking that can't catch on fire, so we should be safe."
"Jaden, I SEE FLAMES!"
Jaden twisted back around, slamming his injured left knee against the wheel. The sight of the flames on the road frightened him so badly, though, that he was barely aware of the pain.
"We gotta get out of here, NOW!" Jaden announced.
"But that thing's still out there!" Cynthia protested. "Why doesn't it just GO AWAY?! Why's it just...just...STANDING THERE?!"
"I'm gonna go out and fight him," Jaden proclaimed, somehow managing to sound vaguely confident.
"THE FUCK YOU ARE!!!" Cynthia notified him.
"Look...LOOK! It's just a GUY! A guy covered in black body paint!"
"A guy covered in black body paint...with WINGS that came out of his MOUTH!"
"Yeah, but besides that, he's totally human! I mean...he ain't no monster! Guy's got a circumcised dick! How's a MONSTER wind up with a circumcised dick?!"
"I don't CARE about his missing foreskin," Cynthia argued, "I care about your missing engine! ...And your tires! ...And what it did to that guardrail! I don't give a FLYING SHIT about what IT LOOKS LIKE!!! I ONLY CARE ABOUT WHAT I JUST SAW IT DO!!!"
Lecher let out a scream of frustration.
"May I assume from the fact that the Thrall doesn't appear to be shitting like an overfed goldfish, that you still don't have control over the white tendril?" Guile snarked.
"You MAY!" Lecher snapped. "And may I assume that YOU still haven't managed to mentally shut down the attention-starved, pyromaniac Frankenstein who's trying to help us all survive by exposing our existence to the world?"
"As a matter of fact, I'm starting to be able to 'hear' the exchanges between Lure's injured brain and the proto....NO, DON'T DO THAT!"
After much-jumbled thought, the Thrall decided that since the metal box could no longer hurt him, and neither could the fire, it would return to his original objective.
The Thrall never had any intention of engaging Jaden or the others; he only wanted to use the wide, open space to flap his wings and take flight.
The Thrall raised its huge, black, tarp-like wings and tilted them so that they were parallel to the ground. As it began to flap, the air was shoved down at the road, over and over with amazing rapidity and force. In a herky-jerky fashion, Lure slowly lifted into the air. It was a completely inefficient waste of physical energy unless the Thrall's goal was to fan the flames beneath the SUV and spread the huge, blazing puddle further back towards the gas tank.
"Why is he trying to do a vertical take-off?" Lecher questioned. "Lure has never been able to successfully do that!"
"Because the protocols have healed enough of Lure's brain to access his memories of flying, and his attempts at a vertical take-off, but not Lure's tongue launch, which is the ONLY way the bastard can initiate flight!"
Cynthia opened her door to get out. The flames singed her ankles, making her yelp and slam the door. Jaden dove over his seat and crawled between Cynthia and his comatose brother, intending to see if he could manually open the depowered rear hatch.
Jaden was kicking himself for only skimming his owner's manual.
"Lecher, keep trying to get the white tendril out here! NOTHING I'm doing is having any effect on the protocols. We have to get this situation under control and leave before things deteriorate even FURTHER!"
"How the fuck COULD THEY?!" Lecher asked incredulously.
"SHIT!" Guile cried out.
Two seconds later, a northbound red pick-up truck came over the rise and slammed on its brakes to avoid crashing into the fallen cedar. There were two occupants, a man and a boy. And while the man busied himself with stopping his truck, the boy's eyes widened and his jaw dropped at the sight of the huge, bat-like monster that was flapping its wings violently over the roadway.
"Of course," Lecher sighed. "Why the fuck NOT?!?!"
End of Chapter 3