Mega Worm Apocalypse

SIX

"So..." said Justin, shutting the door to their room. "What do we do?"

Kayla sat on the bed, her eyes staring at nothing. She hadn't said a word the entire walk back from the Victory. Her fingers gripped tight to the comforter. And Justin felt another wriggle of anxiety writhe in his gut.

"Kayla?" he said. "Do you believe them?"

Them. That Nat girl, and her Andres. And their...unicorn. These strangers who turned up and turned everything upside down with their strangeness, and their doomsday prophecies, and their FREAKING UNICORN.

When their conversation was over, the four of them left the Victory, Captain Dyer demanding to know what was said and Kayla and Nat not offering any information. Justin hadn't answered the old man either -- mostly because he couldn't. He didn't fully understand what he'd just heard. Suddenly zombie sharks seemed like a quaint little problem. 

Robbie offered the strangers a room at the Lookout Motel, the only place in Point Chester that wasn't under water. The only place the Zombie sharks couldn't get to. Not without a whole lot of effort. Sure, they could move free of the water. But it took a lot out of them. And the distance from the water to the Motel was far enough and on high enough ground that they hadn't seen it worth the effort. Justin and Kayla shared room 18, a little double with a view over the cliffs of the ocean and daisy curtains and sunflower sheets. There was a tv and mini fridge that Robbie managed to get working for everyone at the Lookout -- Maddie in room 12, Robbie in room 9, a couple other officers and emergency workers, a scientist, a jouranlist Justin didn't like, and now the Nat girl and her Andres in 16. 

 "Kay?" he said, desperate to hear her voice. "Do you believe what that girl said? About the...the end of the world?"

"I don't know."

"What don't you know?" he said, not understanding. "What did she mean when the parasite took you under? What did you see?"

"I don't know." Her voice was raspy. Barely a whisper. "I don't like to remember."

"So there was something," said Justin, a flame of anger igniting inside of him. "Why didn't you ever say anything?"

Her eyes snapped into focus then, glaring right at Justin. "Because I was trying to forget."

"But you didn't forget."

"No," she said. "I didn't."

"So what was it?"

She looked at her lap, her grip on the sheets tightening. "I don't know," she said again, "it was like Nat said. It was...dark."

Justin crouched in front of her. He wanted to know. He should have known. They were supposed to tell each other everything. When did that stop?

"It was dark," she said again. "But not like...cold. Like a cave or a...or the deepest parts of the ocean. It was warm. And...heavy."

"You saw this?" He didn't understand.

"Yes, I saw it," she said, impatiently, "I saw it but I also felt it. It's hard to explain. But...it was like I wasn't me anymore. Or at least...not just me."

A cold fear worked its way up Justin's spine. He waited. 

"When the parasite took over, pushed me out of my mind," she explained, "it was like I fell into another one. And that other one was holding on to a thousand others."

"Other what?" 

"Minds," she said. "A thousand other minds, all over the place. And it controlled them. Told them what to do. Where to go. All while being on the move itself. Through the dark."