Assault rifle fire pierced the infected bear’s hide in a dozen places, splattering gobs of meat and blood all over the forest floor. It wasn’t enough to save one of the hunters. The unnaturally muscular and enlarged animal tore the man apart with the demonic fury of the protector forms. Warden Shanks couldn’t get used to it, no matter how often he saw it; nothing alive should move so quickly or so viciously. But the presence of the ferocious guardian meant they were close to their target. He fired a dozen shots into the skull from close range, pulping the brain. Don’t take risks.
"Burn it! All of it. The man too!" he shouted to a trembling recruit noisily vomiting into a bush. The corpse was mangled beyond recognition and carried the infection to boot. He ordered his men to spread out and search. It didn’t take long: "Sacs! We got sacs!" one of the hunters called out. He’d found that turn of phrase funny exactly once—the first time. Afterward, it filled him with deep revulsion. Three leathery, translucent fluid-filled bags, like giant burn blisters the size of a man, were attached to a dying tree beside a small pond. That made sense: The things needed a huge amount of water to grow. Vein-like vessels grew out of them into the tree, and they rooted down into the water. Something big moved inside one, the one furthest "along." He hated the association with pregnancy and childbirth that came unbidden to his mind. This was as far from the simple, natural beauty of that act as you could possibly be. He raised his rifle. The sac trembled, then ruptured as something broke through with a wet sound: a mucus-covered human hand. The blister went flaccid as the liquids inside flowed out, revealing what had been gestating inside. A humanoid figure rose out of the mess. The latest generations seemed to be mutating: the head was bisected lengthwise, with two misshaped faces growing on either side. One arm was vestigial, only the size of a baby’s. Bizarrely, the lower body was almost perfectly formed, displaying a flat stomach with chiseled abs and powerful legs between which dangled hairless male genitals. The thing made sounds with its grisly double mouths: "Dik-trrr Sty-munnn! H’lp! Plisss h’lp!" it mumbled, spraying foamy saliva. Rifle fire tore ragged holes into the figure, turning the whole nest into slimy chunks.
"Go to hell," Shanks muttered. The real Dr. Steinman had been the lunatic who had unleashed this nightmare on the world. Some said it was an experiment that escaped, but nobody really knew. All they could do now was destroy the pods before they ate all the biomass on the planet and turned it into distorted clones of one person: Steinman. Shanks radioed for a clean-up crew and told his men to rest, just for a moment. There was more hunting to be done today.
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