Brain Slug Infestation: Cause and Avoidance

The sound of the shower invaded Mel's dreams. He opened his eyes in the dark, listening to the water splash down her naked body. A part of him wondered what the brain slug thought of interior plumbing. Another, more urgent part of him, grew hard in his boxers. Mel breathed out. Wanted to reach down and touch himself. Except...the sheets were clean. He only had a few clothes. No money for laundry.

Jerking off was a luxury that could wait.

Mel waited until the shower turned off. He heard the squeak as the bathroom door opened, the soft pad of feet back to her room. Then, and only then, did he get up out of bed.

Morning stretches were a holdover from high school. One of the few things that had stayed with Mel was the admonition to do a little every day. Stretches, push-ups, crunches, toe-touches. He did ten sets of each, then stepped out into the main room.

Jordan was in the kitchen, dressed in what looked like some kind of service job uniform, cracking an egg into her open mouth. Mel's stomach lurched as she swallowed the raw egg whole. The little antennae on the slug waved, and her blue eyes found his.

"You're, uh. You're going to get salmonella if you eat them raw," he said. She stared at him. No indication she had heard, except that her attention was fixed on him. Her right hand held another egg. Mel watched as she tilted her head back, mouth open. Thumbs crushed the shell. Yellow yolk and slimy whites oozed into her mouth. Mel swallowed, then headed into the bathroom with his towel carefully hiding his awkward erection.

The water was hot. The pressure was cleansing. Mel let the water play over him, quivering against the stinging rain. He didn't want to use her soap, so he scrubbed himself with a hand towel, focused on groin and pits. When he emerged, she was gone. No doubt off for work. Wherever she worked.

"Good idea," he said aloud.

Armed with a legitimate physical mailing address and citizen identity card, the Seacouver Public Library allowed Mel to get a library card. With a card came lending privileges and—important where he was concerned—access to the internet. The orphanage hadn't sent him out into the world with a smartphone or a laptop, just a basic savings account at a federal credit union and a webmail address. Pretty much every employer that wasn't shady as fuck and paying under the table wanted you to file your resume through their website.

So that's what Mel spent the day doing. Searching. Filling out forms. Putting in the same information a dozen times. Glad that this was a slow day and that the nice old lady at the counter with the blue hair hadn't run him out yet. He ignored the rumble of his stomach, intent on the more long-term survival needs at the moment.

Until his brain could take no more.

As the sun through the windows began to dip, Mel found himself opening the library's online catalogue to see if they had any books on brain slugs. Actual, useful books, not grad student theses or bad porn novels. The search reminded him of the hours he had spent at the library in high school, trying to find porn without making it look like he was trying to find porn, and often ending up in the art and biology sections, staring at photos of cold Greek statues and color photos of various sex diseases.

One hit caught Mel's attention:

Brain Slug Infestation: Cause and Avoidance.

He found it in the Xenobiology section. A relatively thin hardback in institutional green cloth. The same old lady smiled at him as she showed him how to use the self check-out scanner, and indicated the drop-off where he could return it in the next two weeks.

"Interested in xenobiology?" she said, with the kind of smile that made him uncomfortable. The window was rather small, and there was a small basket of disposable pens by her wrist.

"Kinda," he said, not comfortable about admitting what his real interest was.

She leaned closer. The shirt fell rather low on her, showing a depth of cleavage. Her voice dropped into a throaty whisper.

"You know, they say some perverts..."

There was the blare of an alarm. She looked up and slammed the button, all attention focused on the young man with a backpack who had set it off.

"Forgot to check something out, sir?" she asked.

Mel carefully palmed a pen and slipped out while she pulled the book of Victorian erotica from the dude's backpack.

A few of Mel's very small number of creds went toward a loaf of generic white bread and a bar of generic soap. It wasn't great nutrition, but it would keep him going, hopefully. Half of the jobs he'd applied for were fast food restaurants, which would be good for getting some food. Hopefully.

There was a little flutter of excitement in Mel's chest as his keycard worked. He still had a home, at least. He went in, and saw that Jordan wasn't back yet from her job.

"Where do you work?" he asked himself aloud, as he plopped onto his bed and cracked the book open. Then, almost as an afterthought. "And are they hiring?"

"Xenolimax cerebri devorator is an apex symbiont from an unknown xenoplanet. There are at least four different subspecies that have been identified, which arrived on sixteen different ships during the Exodus. Each ship carried one or more broods, each of which displays distinctive coloration and adaptations or behaviors. Legends and anecdotes suggest brainslugs were initially aggressive predators or opportunistic parasitoids that preyed upon subjects that were asleep, but those who reached Earth as refugees are primarily complacent, working with local authorities and attempting to integrate into Earth cultures."

Mel's head throbbed. He hadn't liked reading much during school, and now for the first time in his life he was trying to read a book like his life depended on it. Because maybe it did.

There were diagrams showing the way the brainslug connected with and merged with the spinal cord. Preferred humidity and temperature range—which is apparently what made this hive choose Seacouver, as they preferred cooler, moister environments with less sunlight, which made the Pacific Northwest about perfect for them. Different means of brain slug reproduction—Mel knew he'd have to look up some of these words.

Nothing on the most important question, as far as he was concerned.

Why would anyone sign their life away to be host to a brain slug? Who was Jordan Carmichael before she decided to let an alien parasite commandeer her body? Was there anything left in there of who she was?

Mel sighed as he heard the front door open. That would be her. Which meant he had to do something that he'd never been any damn good at.

Talk to a girl.

He poked his head out. Jordan looked much as he had last seen her this morning: in her uniform, pale blonde hair overgrown on one side, no makeup. Maybe there were bags under the lines. Complex smells clung to her, messy and organic. She glanced at him and froze.

"So, uh, how was your day?" he said. He stood in his doorway, heart hammering. "I was at the library all day, applying for jobs. Hopefully I'll hear back soon."

Her left arm came up, and for the first time Mel realized she was holding something. A piece of paper.

He stepped out of his room and took it from her hand.

It was a job application. Gas Station Attendant. Level 1. The logo, a kind of double-halo around a sphere, was the same emblazoned on Jordan's shirt.

As he read, she stepped past him, into her own room. The door closed.

She didn't emerge for the rest of the night. Mel filled out the form with his stolen library pen.