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Artwork by Carole Humphreys
Invasion Hundreds of coma patients in various hospitals around the world simultaneously woke up at exactly 6:35 in the evening. Mary Jenner was one of those. She hadn't been a functioning part of the world for more than eight months, and yet when she opened her eyes and spoke, it was as if no more than a minute or two had passed. At first, Sammy Jenner didn’t realize that his wife had spoken. He thought it was someone on television. Then he recognized the voice. It had been a while since he’d heard it last. "It's coming," Mary said ominously as her bowels released. A thin line of drool ran from a drawn corner of her mouth. The way she looked at her husband reminded him of a frightened little girl. He’d never seen a look like that on his wife’s face in the eighteen years they had been married. For the moment, he was just glad to see any kind of expression at all. "You’re awake," Sammy Jenner sobbed, hardly believing the fortuitous turn of events. He had been waiting and praying for this day, and now it was here. Tears rolled down his face as he grabbed Mary's hand and rubbed it against his cheek. "It's coming, Sammy," Mary reiterated. "It’s coming to swallow the world." Sammy chalked the whole thing up to disorientation after lying in a coma for so long and promptly rang the nurse on duty. At that point, nothing could have ruined his mood. He finally had his wife back. Mary's recovery was one of the most talked about cases on that floor for the rest of the week. All of the doctors and nurses who had been tending to her the past eight months showed a surprising lift in their step. It was rewarding to see that their dedication had helped someone survive. In the days following her awakening, the doctors wanted to monitor Mary to make sure there was no undetected brain damage. All of them were hopeful that she would make a full recovery, especially since she had defied so many odds to get to this point. And while it took her a few days to adjust, Mary did start to revert to her previous self, much to the delight of her husband and friends. The car wreck that had put her in the hospital to begin with was completely forgotten. Sammy had just about forgotten those fateful words that Mary spoke upon awakening when she said them again after taking her prescription for the evening. "It's coming, Sammy. You should get away from me while you still have the chance." Sammy looked at his wife and was suddenly fearful that something might actually be wrong with her mind. Eight months was a long time to sleep. "Who's coming?" he asked, hoping that it was nothing more than a temporary slip in Mary's sense of reasoning. "I don't know," Mary admitted, obviously confused by the question. "The only thing I'm sure of is that it's coming, and the world is in danger." Sammy wasn’t about to ask what ‘it’ was. He didn’t want to know what Mary was thinking. That would solidify her insanity for sure. It was also crush every hope for the future, and that was something he just couldn’t do at this point. He had waited so long for Mary to wake up, and now that she had, he wanted to dream about getting their lives back. "I know you think something is wrong with me," Mary said. "But I’m not crazy. I’ve been somewhere else for the past eight months. I don’t know where it was, but it wasn’t in this world or in this body." "Mary," Sammy began, hoping to cut her off. "Let me finish," she insisted. Sammy went quiet. "I know this is going to sound strange but I brought something back with me from that other place. It’s like someone used my consciousness to smuggle something into this world. I can’t explain it any better than that. It’s kind of like feeling pregnant without the baby." Sammy didn’t know how to respond to that. Thankfully, one of the nurses came in at that time to check Mary’s vitals. After the nurse left, Sammy diverted the conversation to other topics, filling Mary in on her baby brother's marriage, the state of her mother's diabetes, and other things she needed to know. It was all too much to comprehend for a woman who had been in a coma for eight months. The moment Mary drifted off to sleep, Sammy wasted no time finding the doctor who had been caring for his wife for the past eight months. Dr. Fortman smiled as Sammy told him what had happened. "Mr. Jenner, your wife has been in her own private world for eight months, and now she's back in our world. A little disorientation is to be expected. Once she regains some of her strength we'll get her into counseling and help her ease back into her life. Soon, all of this will be a distant memory. Your wife will be a fully-functioning member of society again, and your life will be back to normal." Sammy breathed a sigh of relief. He placed a lot of faith in what the doctor had to say, and Fortman had pretty much said exactly what he wanted to hear. Sammy soon stopped worrying about his wife's state of mind. Then he happened upon an article in the local newspaper that made him reconsider the doctor's prognosis. The headline was cryptic, yet familiar: "Coma Patient Wakes After Two Years, Dies in Two Days." It only took him a minimal amount of research to determine that the patient had roused from their coma at approximately the same time Mary had. The newspapers in the hospital gift shop all had similar headlines. The disturbing thing about them was the fact that the victims mentioned all had different names and were from different towns in the region. Yet they had all roused from their comas at approximately the same time....and all died sometime thereafter. Sammy left Mary in bed and ran to a payphone. He dialed information and got the number for one of the deceased. The widow picked up on the eighth ring. "Hello," she whispered. It sounded like she had been crying. "Mrs. Wheeler, this is Sammy Jenner at the coroner’s office," he said, hoping his hunch about Mr. Wheeler’s death turned out to be accurate. "I’m sorry to bother you. Things must be very hard. But I need you to describe the circumstances of your husband’s demise one more time so I can cross-check them with our records." "Fine," Mrs. Wheeler said, straining to keep the sobbing at bay. "But I want you to know that this is painful for me." "I understand," Sammy lied. "Carl had been awake for a couple of days when he started complaining of abdominal cramps. The fact that he could feel anything at all was a welcome problem since he’d been asleep for nearly eight years. I paged one of the nurses and thought they would bring him a couple of pills to soothe his stomach. By the time they got there, however, it was too late. Even now, I’m not sure what really happened. Only five minutes or so passed between the time he started complaining and the time he died. One moment, he was lying there groaning. Then he said something like, ‘It’s coming.’ The next thing I knew Carl’s stomach was ripped open and little spider-like things were crawling out of him. What was worse, I could see inside of him, but there weren’t any organs or blood or bones. There was just a vast expanse of darkness. It was like staring into space. It was probably just shock but I thought I could even see a few stars in all that black. I ran out screaming. I have no idea what became of the spider-like creatures, but I’m pretty sure that nobody else saw them. Either I’m crazy or they escaped." Sammy didn’t say anything for a moment. He was too stunned to speak. The fact that Mrs. Wheeler’s husband had said the same thing Mary had said upon waking disturbed him. Even more disturbing was the prospect that Mr. Wheeler’s fate would also befall Mary. "Mr. Jenner?" Mrs. Wheeler said when Sammy didn’t reply. "Are you still there?" "Yes," he said. His voice was shaky. "Thank you. You’ve answered all my questions." When he hung up the phone, he wasn’t sure what to do next. Panic? Vomit? Run to one of the doctors and explain the situation? He knew that nothing he could do would save her now if what Mrs. Wheeler said was accurate. He had no reason to believe that it wasn’t. He ran to Mary’s room as fast as he could. The peaceful smile on her face was enough to tell him that she currently wasn’t in any pain. But Mr. Wheeler’s pain had set in quick. "Are you O.K., baby?" he asked. It was clear that his concern was evident. "Yes, I’m fine," Mary said. "Why do you ask?" "Well, it’s silly really," he admitted, feeling like the phone call had been nothing but a big practical joke. After all, it was impossible to take what Mrs. Wheeler had said seriously. He didn’t think it was so silly a moment later when Mary’s face contorted in pain. She screamed, and Sammy was reminded of the first time she had given birth. "It’s coming," she shrieked. Despite what Mrs. Wheeler had said about the amount of time that lapsed between the initial pains and death, Sammy buzzed one of the nurses. The heavy-set nurse, Mrs. Bridges, arrived in less than a minute. "What is it?" she asked as Mary’s abdomen exploded. A flurry of black appendages was all they saw. The things moved entirely too quick for them to get a detailed look at them. Mrs. Wheeler had been right. They did sort of favor spiders. But there was more than enough that was different and alien about them to distinguish them from the arachnid family. Unfortunately, Mrs. Bridges never had a chance to do much speculating of any type. The creatures ate her alive in a matter of seconds. It was like watching piranhas in the Amazon devour a calf while natives crossed the river. Sammy couldn’t do anything but gape in awe at his dead wife’s opened stomach. He’d always heard of astral projection theories that proclaimed the existence of other worlds and planes of reality. Maybe Mary had lived on one of those planes of reality for the past eight months just as she’d claimed. Maybe she had been a vessel, used to smuggle some sort of alien bioterror weapon back to earth. Maybe the earth was about to be invaded. What Mrs. Wheeler had mistaken for outer space and stars in the depths of her husband’s abdomen was actually an alternate reality at night. Sammy could see the same thing she had seen. But he saw more. He saw alien vistas, strange plateaus, and something large rumbling along the ground toward him. If Mary had been an opened book, he would have closed her then to avoid the killer that was approaching at breakneck speed. As it was, he couldn’t do anything but cry out in pain as the spider-like creatures moved away from Mrs. Bridges’ remains and toward him, eating him bit by bit. The small killers weren’t fast enough, however, to keep their sire from taking its hunk of flesh. A large, hairy stalk reached through the gap in worlds that was Mary’s abdomen and impaled Sammy like an appetizer on a toothpick. A trickle of blood ran from his mouth as he was pulled into the doorway, into Mary. The first thing he thought of as he died was that he and Mary had perished together just as he’d always hoped they would. The second thought was that the doorway was open, and something very terrible was about to invade. The earth didn’t realize it yet, but it was in for a very nasty fight.
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