Question Unexpected Company

Unexpected Company - A Whateley Universe Tale.


A Small farm near Nisswa, Minnesota.
June 3rd, 2007


It was a bright, sunny day on the farm. Everything was going well, Bessie was expected to have the calf any day now. Papa was out in the barn, fixing the tractor, and Lucy was cooking lunch. The farmhands would be hungry, for sure. She didn’t mind the extra chores, since school had just gotten out. She had checked the henhouse this morning, there were a couple dozen eggs. She would make hash browns and scrambled eggs, she decided.

Jeremy Lundegren had come in from the fields, and was sweaty. He had taken off his shirt and idly walked over to pour himself some lemonade. Lucy looked at him, her heart skipping a beat. Jeremy was handsome, in that midwestern farm boy way. He was nearly 6’4”, with tanned skin, somewhat muscular, with blonde hair, and blue eyes that told of his nordic ancestry. Lucy bit her lip, he was hot, and the girls at school knew it. She was going to be a freshman this year, and a senior like him wouldn’t notice a girl like her, not in the way she wanted, at least. He smiled at her and gave her a pat on the head.

“Hey Sprout, good lemonade. Your dad and the others will be in in a few minutes.”, he commented to her, not realizing that it pained her that he was talking down to her like a little kid. She wasn’t the plainest girl in her class last year, but she was far from the prettiest.

Lucy was pretty average in her own eyes, she was 5’6”, so not too short, but not as tall as she would like. Her hair was a dirty black, not like that cow Ellen Sanford, who had the prettiest dark raven black hair. her eyes were a mud brown, and she was a mere A cup. That heifer Vicky Swenson was only a few months older than her and had developed early, being the first girl to need a bra, back in 6th grade. And she kept on growing, she was already a D cup, that sow. Lucy pouted to herself and resumed cooking.

David Jensen walked in, seeing Lucy standing there. She had dished out eggs and hash browns to Jeremy and was not so subtly watching the boy. Lucy had lost her mother in childbirth, and he had raised her alone. It wasn’t easy taking care of a teen girl, he remembered getting through her first period had been a very traumatic incident for them both. He loved Lucy but he was a little sad that she didn’t have a strong maternal figure in her life. Lucy had told him that it was okay that he date, and that she knew that he had loved mom, and that nobody could take her place, but he deserved to be happy. David sighed, he had tried going out with other women, but nobody could stack up to Marie in his mind.

Lucy reminded him of Marie in many ways, she had inherited her mother’s bright, warm smile and her beautiful black hair. Lucy had that shy, gentle quality that her mother had. David shook his head, his baby was growing up too fast.

—————

Lucy went out to check on Bessie, the calf had been born last week and was looking healthy and strong. Lucy had been hoping for a male, but it had ben a female calf. That was alright with papa, because that meant another milk cow around the farm. Lucy brought in a bale of hay and sat as she watched Bessie feed the little one. Papa had allowed her to name the little one, and she had decided to call it Margie. After watching the calf feed for a while, Lucy got up and turned to go, when she doubled over in pain. It was too early for cramps, she was very regular, and her period wasn’t expected for another week and a half. She walked to the house, and dug around for her mydol. She took a couple and downed the glass of water quickly. She slumped over on the couch and laid there all afternoon.


Lucy fell asleep on the couch, her dreams were haunted by squeals and shrieks, inhuman cries and visions of something crawling around in some sort of nightmare of guts and organs and bone. It was as if she were inside a giant person.

Lucy woke up with a feeling of pain in her chest, like intense heartburn. She clutched at her chest and staggered into the bathroom. The cramps had stopped, but now this. She couldn’t be sick, papa needed her. She downed some pepto and got back to the kitchen.
the rest of the day went without incident, Lucy made dinner for papa and the help. after she washed the dishes, Lucy went up to bed early, the pain in her chest still there.

—————

David was worried, he had noticed that Lucy hadn’t been right for the past couple weeks, she was lethargic and seemed to be in pain, when he asked her about it, she simple shook it off as ‘female problems’, but he wasn’t sure it was as simple as that. He had noticed that pink bottle was gone from the medicine cabinet, and Luther from the drugstore had called to see if everything was okay. Lucy had been in somewhat frequently, buying pain relievers and other over the counter medications. He made up his mind that he would talk to her this afternoon.

David walked into the living room, finding Lucy slumped over a bucket, retching. Lucy looked up at him, blood and vomit dripping from the corner of her mouth. That wasn’t the most shocking thing, however. Looking at his daughter’s eyes, they wren’t right. Instead of the beautiful shade of brown she had inherited from her mother, they were a deep indigo color.

—————

Donald Miller was a good doctor, in everyone’s opinion. He had been practicing medicine in Nisswa for close to 30 years. He had delivered Lucy, and had tried desperately to stop the placental hemorrhage that had caused her mother’s death. In all those years, he had never seen anything like this. The change of eye color was usually an indication of a mutant manifestation, however he was at a loss for the cause of the bleeding. X-Rays had not discovered anything. Except for an elevated white blood cell count, there was nothing unusual in Lucy’s blood tests.

“Frankly David, I’m at a loss.”, He said as he looked through the window at the sleeping girl. “All the tests I have at my disposal reveal nothing. My only advice is that we have her transferred to Duluth or Minneapolis, someplace where they can run more extensive tests.”

David frowned grimly. He had lost Marie, but he’d be damned if he would lose Lucy as well. “Do whatever it takes, Don. Just save my baby girl. Please.”

Donald nodded and stepped away, the girl was in stable condition, but had to be heavily sedated and a suction line inserted to keep her from aspirating on vomit and blood. he would arrange for her to be airlifted to a better facility. He owed the family that much.

—————

Lucy moaned as she was loaded on the helicopter. She was unconscious, and she could hear the growling, the snarling. Every time she slept, she could hear it. Something inhuman, something feral and wild. She could see blood and tissue ripping, tearing, shredding, then growing back. something moving, something tearing through its host with a primal hunger. It was starving, it hungered.

The Helicopter landed on the pad atop the roof of the University of Minnesota Mutant Research and Medical Center. Lucy got the feeling of being removed from the vehicle. The portable suction device pumped furiously, removing the blood and vomit from her esophagus. She was unconscious still, but she was showing indications of coming around. The medications they had given her were supposed to last for hours yet, but she was becoming resistant to them.

Lucy was wheeled down to the examining room, the pump was removed, and she was put onto a new suction tube and loaded into the CAT-scan machine. The doctors ran the scans as Lucy lay there motionless.

—————

David Jensen had left the Lundegren boy in charge of the farm. He hastily climbed into his old ’82 Ford pick-up and left on the two and a half hour drive to the Twin Cities. Worries nagged at him. Lucy was his life, without his little girl, it would be empty. Surely nothing bad would happen. He was so lost in his thoughts that the fact that she had been diagnosed as being an emergent mutant had barely passed through his conscious concerns. He had wished that there had been room on the chopper for him, but he had to drive himself.

—————

Doctor Garber looked over the scans of his patient. There was a small anomalous mass between her heart and lung that they could not identify. Ordinarily, exploratory surgery would be recommended. But with the girl’s temperature increasing, surgery on a mutant undergoing a burnout was highly dangerous and not recommended. He continued to monitor her, as her temperature remained constant at 103.3, despite all attempts to lower it using ice baths and other conventional treatments.

—————

Doctor Garber escorted Mr. Jensen into the observation room. In only 3 hours the girl had changed dramatically, the young woman in front of him looked far in advance of her 13 years. Lucy had transformed. In the past few hours her hips had widened considerably, in contrast to her narrow waist. She had developed a noticeable hourglass shape, and her bust was easily three cup sizes larger. Additionally, her hair had grown rapidly, going from shoulder-length to reaching the small of her back. Her hair had also changed from plain black to a dark purple-ish tint. All the rest of the hair on her body had been shed, save her eyebrows and eyelashes.

“As you can see, she has undergone a rapid growth spurt caused by her burnout. We have discovered that she is likely an exemplar, meaning that she is gifted with above human physical and probably mental attributes. When we went to collect tissue samples, we discovered her regeneration, it’s extraordinarily high, as soon as the scalpel cut her skin, it healed almost instantaneously.”

David looked at the doctor. He was an excellent judge of people, and the doctor seemed to be holding back. “There is something you aren’t saying.”

Garber nodded. “While we were examining her, we discovered a foreign mass in her chest cavity. It’s about 4-5 inches long, and appears to be alive. Furthermore its moved locations 3 times since we discovered it. At this time, we are hesitant to attempt to remove it. It appears right now to be causing no harm to her, and in her current state surgery would not only be difficult, but potentially life-threatening.”

—————

Lucy felt the voice in her head, it was stilted and hesitant. “You sister? I been here. Long time. Sleep. Not change. You change, change me. Grow. learn. I feel you in… head?”

“Where are you?”, She thought to the voice. “Why can’t I see you?”

“I inside. I move, you feel.”, it said.

Lucy fought through the fog in her mind, and sensed her body, she felt it. Something was slithering and snaking its way through her chest. She felt something touch her lung, then her heart. With a panicked scream, she bolted upright in the bed.

“Lucy!” David looked at his daughter, she was still sweating and seemed dazed, but she was looking at him with recognition. “Baby girl, you had me worried! They say there’s some sort of parasite inside you. We need to get it out!”

Lucy shook her head, the very act making her dizzy. “No Daddy. I’m fine. It’s… it’s… He spoke to me. He says he’s my brother. He’s been dormant inside me all this time. Oh God! Daddy… I’m gonna be sick.” With that, Lucy turned her head, and threw up before passing out again.

—————

Lucy lay unconscious as the doctors gathered around and talked with her father.

“It certainly is possible, I suppose. I have heard of mutant siblings that have had symbiotic powers, though this is certainly an extreme case. “, said one doctor.

Another Doctor responded. “I still would like to get tissue samples of the organism, as soon as possible.”

David, for his part was shaken. The idea he had a son, a son who had been a dormant fetus inside Lucy was shocking. He would need time to think about how to proceed. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t get that time.

There was a scream of unbelievable pain from the room behind him. He turned in time to see Lucy lurch up awkwardly, with a sudden popping noise, her chest exploded open, like a watermelon with a firecracker in it. Warning alarms and bells went off as the doctors rushed to enter. The monitors all showed a flatline, and the reason seemed obvious to everyone. the girl’s chest cavity was blown wide open. a spray of blood and bone and tissue covering the walls and floor and ceiling. It was as if someone had ripped her open and scooped her chest out, emptying it.

The doctors looked into the gaping hole and saw a sickening sight. standing on her spinal column was a small worm-like creature. It was perhaps 6 inches long, with tiny black dots that vaguely could be eyes. it had a large domed head, rows of razor sharp teeth in it’s maw, and hands with two large fingers, and a thumb, each with large claws at the end.

The creature tilted its head and looked at the gathered doctors, it coiled it’s tail and sprung out of the corpse, before landing on the bed-side table.

“No worry.” It hissed, “She alive in few time. I not kill, I need. She protect me. Feed. I come tell you no harm.”

The doctors looked at it, then looked over at Lucy. To their shock, organs began to grow inside the empty cavity, the hole was shrinking as well. Five minutes passed and the hole had sealed up. There was no sign that there had ever been a hole in her chest. The monitors were once again reading a steady heartbeat and normal respiration. She moaned and stirred in her sleep.

“Can take tests, I allow. No Kill. Hurry hurry.”, The odd creature implored.

Nearly an hour had passed, blood and tissue samples were taken from Lucy and the parasite. Tests of its powers were hastily conducted. As it got close to the one hour point, the creature was visibly weakening.

“Not last outside long. Back in. Hurry. Soon.”, It implored.

The doctors looked at David. “It’s ultimately your decision.”, Stated Doctor Weber noncommittally.

David sighed. He believed Lucy, but he had seen what had happened to her, the self-medication, the pain. “ Doctor, Will there be any lasting issues for Lucy if we let it… him… re-enter her?”

The Doctor looked David straight in the eye and answered. “I honestly can’t say. We don’t know if she has suffered any brain damage, or if her health has been compromised in any way, but from my observations, whatever that may be, it’s not going to last long outside her body.”

David sighed. “Do it, however you have to.”, he sadly said.

Not waiting for the Doctor to reply, the small creature flew across the room, and landed next to Lucy’s face. She opened her eyes.

“ I sorry. I have to in now.”, it said to her.

She looked at the scary thing and nodded. “I… I … Understand.”

Lucy sat up and opened her mouth. The creature floated up in front of her face. With a burst of speed, it entered her mouth and began to climb down her esophagus. Lucy thrashed and gagged as she struggled to keep from choking on her sibling. Tears streamed down her face as she swallowed. Her chest burned with the pain of him slithering down her digestive tract. With a painful wrenching she felt him tear free from her stomach and slither up into his normal resting place in her upper chest. It took a few seconds for her stomach to heal over, after which she leaned over again and began to dry heave.

—————

It had been a week. Lucy sat in bed. Her ‘tapeworm’, as she had begun to refer to him, had manifested a few more times. The doctors ran more tests on them both, including just about every scan and imaging method known to man. They had discovered something about Lucy. In addition to her increased physical durability and regeneration, she apparently had a protective system in her brain that effectively saved all information physically, and then put her brain into a form of stasis. This adaptation allowed her brain to survive without being damaged when she underwent oxygen deprivation.

Lucy stood up and walked to the bathroom. She was going home today. she needed to look her best. She grumbled to herself quietly as she looked in the mirror. She had finally gotten bigger boobs than that cow Vicky, and of course her little pain in the gut brother had to blow her up, repeatedly. Although she was what the doctors called a regen 7, possibly greater, that seemed to only take care of the more critical damage. She looked down again at her A cup breasts. It wasn’t fair. They had discovered the twerp needed to come out for an hour a day, each day. With him bursting out every day, she would never get back to the D cup she had briefly been.

She looked at the MID card she had been issued. She had been listed as ‘Host’ for the testing. In addition to the regeneration, she was listed as an Exemplar 3, and an ESP 2 due to her telepathic connection to that little worm. She looked at the other MID card she held, the one that said ‘Tapeworm’ on it, With the ESP 3, WRP 5(D), EN 4.

She closed her eyes and focused. “You there?”, she asked him.

“I’m awake.”, came the reply. “I’m sorry. I wish I could be normal, so that I didn’t have to hurt you.”

Lucy had to admit, his language skills were getting better. It still freaked her out that he had been inside her all the time, even though he had been dormant. The doctors couldn’t quite figure out if her manifesting caused him to become active and begin growing, or if his awakening had caused her manifestation. Either way, she was stuck with him. It wasn’t all bad, she did have someone to talk to, she would never be lonely.

Still She knew nothing would ever be normal again. It would be dangerous to go back home, if someone saw him, there would be trouble. She would never be able to go back to her school. Even if he behaved, she looked too different. Her hair and eyes weren’t natural colors. They would know she was a mutant.

—————

Lucy sat in her bedroom, The summer hd gone by so fast. Of course, she had been in the hospital for most of it, but it was already the middle of August. Looking over the papers that sat on her bed, she sighed. Life had a funny way of working things out. One of the doctors at the university had a step-daughter that had attended a boarding school out in New England. He had contacted the school on Lucy’s behalf, and gotten them to send her the enrollment forms. She looked over the acceptance papers and student handbook that had come via special courier. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. maybe this Whateley Academy would be just what she needed.