Chapter 2: Intrusion of the People Snatchers

They're coming.

The Taggert girl and I are huddled in the dark under one of the tables in Conway's chemistry lab, but that won't help for long. They're surrounding us, searching for us.

And soon... they'll find us.

And then...

I'll kill myself before I give into them. They're THINGS! Things in human costume. And I... will not become one of them. Even if I have to... even if...

I squeeze my hand around the knitting needle I hold to reassure myself. I took it from Cecilia's desk just after they turned her, and it is my way out of this if needed. I won't let them turn me, not into a THING. I'll place the needle between my third and fourth ribs and drive it into my chest if I have to.

But then... what of my family? My husband? My eight-year-old son and six-year-old daughter? Will the children be safe? Or will these things take over them, no matter how young? Or will the children be penned up like cattle until puberty and taken then?

Ohgod, help us please...

(One day earlier)

"I think that we can reach her if we keep trying," Angela Garretson said in her soft melodious voice. "I was talking with her the other day and she seemed to really open up."

"You're just wasting your time," I sighed. "The girl will never amount to anything. Except trouble."

Angela frowned. She and I had butted heads on this topic before. "You can't just wash your hands of the ones you don't like, Deborah."

"And YOU shouldn't waste your time on the bad kids -- it just reinforces their bad behavior. And it makes it hard for the rest of us that have to put up with them in our classrooms."

"One, she's not a bad kid. She's just different from you, and that doesn't make her bad. And two, she's trying to find herself. That's what teenagers DO. It's what they're SUPPOSED to do."

"She turned 18 at the end of January," I sighed. "If she doesn't like being coddled here, she can go try her hand in the real world. Wind up selling her body on the street corner."

Angela tightened her mouth and looked off to the side.

I pushed it: Angela needed to be yanked back into line. "And people like you make it harder for people like us to do our jobs. If it were up to me, the Taggert girl would tow the line, or she would be out of here the next day. And she would know this, and she would make her choice. But then people like you come along and make things muddy. After listening to you, she thinks she might be able to be bad and get away with it, might even be rewarded for it. You make things hard for the girl. Now instead of being able to make a clean break and go on with her life of prostitution and drugs, she wonders if she might have a place-- "

"Deborah," Angela snapped back, "YOU are NOT the final arbiter of who gets to stay in school and who gets relegated to a lifetime of prostitution. Fawn is a smart girl -- she got 1300 on her SATs."

"She has both nipples pierced and comes to school braless! She looks like she's had each boob stapled! I don't want the slut in my classroom."

"Maybe she doesn't want you there, either."

"Well," I smiled, "she doesn't have any choice now, does she?"

"Deborah, you changed classes with Osborn at the beginning of the semester just so that you could get her in your history class."

"Maybe I like to take on the problem children."

"She's NOT a problem child! If you just get off her back!"

"I agree with Deborah," Cecilia piped up.

I looked at Angela and nodded. So there.

Angela leaned back in her chair and looked away. "Sorry, I'm not giving up on her." She kicked her foot a couple times, then looked back at me. "She's NOT even a bad girl! She's just DIFFERENT from you!"

"I have to disagree with you on that," I said coldly. "She's a bad seed. Has been from the day she was born. And you need to cut the bad seeds loose so you can help the good ones like Dana."

Angela rolled her eyes. "Dana Levee is just a little suck-up that thinks that she can keep her GPA by telling you what you want to hear. And in YOUR case, that DOES work."

That was enough. I stood, turned my back on the woman and walked out. Cecilia was right behind me.

"What are you going to do?" Cecilia asked as we walked up the hall.

"Angela Garretson is trouble," I declared with pursed lips. "Same as that Taggert kid. We'd all be better off if both of them left."

I walked up to the front office, Cecilia in tow. "Stay," I told her just outside the door and stepped in alone.

Diane and Louise saw me and whispered together a second. Then Louise stepped up to the counter. "May I help you, Mrs Brady?"

"I wish to make an appointment to speak to Principal Edwards."

The woman fidgeted a second. "Are you sure it's nothing I could help you with?"

I just stared at her.

"Okay," she sighed and pulled out an appointment book. "Do you have a 11:00?"

"No, I'm free that period. I'll see him at 11:00." I spun around and walked out.

To allow Angela Garretson to continue like she was would be to just make things muddy for her. She simply was never meant to be a teacher. And we just needed to lay things out clearly for her so that she could make a clean break from teaching and get on with HER life of prostitution and drugs.

Dana Levee was walking a little funny. Her sister had come home from college last night and... well... after the things they did, Dana's body felt a little different.

Actually, a lot different.

She looked at the floor behind her to make sure she wasn't leaving a trail of juices.

She knocked on the nurse's office. There had been just way too many people in math class for her to do the things she wanted to do. The nurse's office would be quieter.

Nurse Simpson opened the door. "Yes, Dana? Are you not feeling well?"

"Nooooo, I have this buuuuuurning..." she fidgeted.

"Oh, my. Where?"

"Let me show you," Dana said as she stepped inside.

"She tried, Principal Edwards," Diane said, "but once that women goes on the rampage about something, there's no stopping her."

Louise gave a confirming nod. "I did try, sir."

"I know," Edwards sighed. "And thank you for that. Guess it's up to me to sedate the bull now."

All three looked up at me when I stepped into the office. The two women resented me. I'm 35, a little flat-chested, with dark hair to mid-back. I'm not unattractive, but I know what's right and what's wrong. And that puts some people off -- just the ones that want to do wrong, though.

"We have an 11:00," I told Principal Edwards.

"Yes, we do," he smiled. "Come on in, Deborah. What can I help you with?"

I pulled his door shut behind me. "We have trouble," I declared.

He sighed and almost rolled his eyes. "And what seems to be the problem, hmm?"

"Garretson does not belong in the teaching profession."

"And yet, somehow she made it here."

"Which is astonishing to me. You'd think they would try to weed these people out."

"She cares for her students, Deborah."

"She cares for the wrong ones. The trouble makers."

"All of our students are important to us, Mrs Brady. We have to care for them all."

"But it's different types of caring, Principal Edwards. With students like Dana Levee, who have so many options, you help them excel however you can. For students like that Taggert girl, the best you can do is train them into a vocation -- hairdressing maybe. And you have to pay special attention that they don't disrupt your classes and cheat all the REAL students of THEIR education."

"And this applies to Ms Garretson because..."

"Garretson is unable to control her classroom. She's unable to control herself. She gets a bleeding heart for these bad kids, then rewards them for their misbehavior and cheats the good students out of their education. And she makes it hard on the rest of us that ARE trying to teach the good students because the bad ones act worse in our classes -- they think they can get away with it because of her."

"Mrs Brady, if we proceed any further with discussions against Ms Garretson, I will need to get her in here so that she can answer your charges."

"Go right ahead. I have three other teachers that I will want to bring in too, to vouch for the same things that I'm saying."

Edwards sighed and drifted off in thought.

"Principal Edwards?" I brought his attention back after several seconds -- the man looked like he was getting ready to zone out in contemplation.

"Hmm?" he sighed.

"What we need to do is to simply make clear to Garretson what is required of her to be a successful teacher here at Washington High. We need to counsel her and let her know that she cannot cheat the good students of their education in order to cater to and reward the bad students. Then we need to watch her and if she does such a thing again, we need to reprimand her until she gets it right. Or leaves."

"And how do you propose we measure whether she is 'cheating the good students' as you call it, Mrs Brady?"

"Oh, I'll be sure to tell you."

Edwards looked sick. "I will talk with Ms Garretson and see what we can do."

"Principal Edwards, that is simply insufficient. This woman is not doing her job, she is preventing the rest of us from doing our jobs, and I don't think that the parents of this school will put up with us shirking their children's education like that. If we attempt to, they will storm the school in protest."

Edwards scratched his chin, studying me. Let him. If he crossed me on this, I'd have a small army of parents storm the school, demanding to know why their children were being cheated out of an education in order to give a cushy job to Garretson and a cushy grade to Taggert. And he knew it.

His eyes narrowed as he weighed how much of a bitch I could be versus how much of a bitch Garretson could be. That was easy: I would win because I was determined.

Then his eyes grayed with resignation and I smiled: the man did want to keep his job.

"I will speak with her," he sighed, "And she will cease fighting for Fawn Taggert. Does that appease you, Mrs Bardy?"

"For the moment. But as long as Garretson is here, there will be trouble. She's just like that."

He just stared at me silently.

"Good day, Principal Edwards." I stood and left.

"How do I leash that woman?" Principal Martin Edwards asked his wife over lunch. "I'M supposed to be HER boss!"

"You're talking about Mrs Brady, of course," Tamara Edwards smiled.

"Who else?"

"What's she up to this time?"

"She's decided that Angela Garretson will no longer work as a teacher."

"Except that's your decision to make or not make."

"In theory. I just mentioned bringing Ms Garretson in to be present at the meeting to decide the fate of her future career, and Brady immediately countered that she wanted to bring in a gang of her cronies to nod and blindly back up everything that she said."

"That's the way that one works. She won't fight you one-on-one. She always brings a gang and makes sure that it's bigger than any you bring."

"I tried to pacify her that I would talk with Garretson, but that apparently wasn't showing enough zealousness for her cause: she threatened to instigate the parents into a riot because the sheer presence of Angela Garretson will cheat every last one of their children out of an education. And the trouble is, she can pull it off: she can rile them up at church better than I can calm them down with rational discussion."

"Can you just fire her for insubordination? This is clearly-- "

"I don't know. She has some hold on Stein. Maybe he goes to the same church. Maybe he fears the riots she can stoke too. But I'm not sure at all that he would support me."

"The churches in this town," Tamara shook her head. "If you don't 'belong' to the 'hive', you're shunned as an outsider and ganged up on by drones from the hive. And this Brady bitch is just sure that she's queen bee."

"I think that I'd like to start a church of my own whose only tenet is tolerance and freedom. Do you think I could get any supporters?"

"Honey, people join a church to get the power to hurt other people. What you're talking about doesn't meet that need at all. In fact, it undermines it."

"You're right, of course," Martin Edwards sighed, then looked up. "Do you think the human species even deserves to be saved?"

Nurse Simpson lolled her head and eyes around, starting to slip out of another orgasmic haze. "God, Dana... , " she moaned, "what... have you done to me?"

"Feel good, Nurse Simpson?"

"OH, YEEEEEAAAAAAH... !" Another ripple of orgasms twitched through her genitals. "It's... illegal to drug... someone, Dana..."

"I didn't drug you, Nurse Simpson," the eighteen-year-old high school senior giggled.

"When... when does this wear off... ?"

"Never, Nurse Simpson! Isn't it wonderful? You'll feel this good forever!"

"Uuuuuunnnnggh," the nurse shivered as another herd of orgasms stampeded through her.

Satisfied that her work here was done, Dana pulled her clothes back on and walked up the hall toward the front office. She'd always thought that Mrs Zimmler in the front office swas cute...

"Diane," Principal Edwards stepped out of the office, studying a paper, "do you have the minutes to the-- " He looked up and smiled. "Hello, Nurse Simpson." He looked around. "Do you, uhm, know where Diane or Louise went to?"

"They're, uhm-- Dana is showing them... something. Sir." Pleasant smile.

"Well, they're supposed to-- (sniff). Do you smell something, Nurse Simpson?"

"Why, no, Principal Edwards," she stood and stepped close. He took a step back. "Not unless it's my new perfume. What's it smell like?"

"Well... honestly... like a skunk. But not bad. It's, uh... sorta nice."

"Do you think?" She stepped to him again, and he didn't step away this time. "Kinda," -- she crinkled her cute nose -- "NICE, isn't it?"

"Yeah," he laughed and nodded.

"Don't you think?" she touched her fingers to his chest when the phone rang.

"Ehr, I should probably get that," he said after a minute.

"Do you think?" She leaned a little closer.

"I, uh... , " he lost himself in her eyes for a second, but then blinked. "Yeah, I... should." He took as couple steps back, then hurried to answer the phone before the caller gave up.

It was Mrs. Edwards. "Yes, honey? Yeah. Yes, I can pick some up. Sure."

Coach Baker came up to the counter and Nurse Simpson stepped toward him and smiled. "Yes, Coach?" she asked as a perky light danced at her eyes.

"Hi, Nurse Simpson. Are you subbing for Diane and Louise?"

"Call me Tina, Coach Baker," she smiled, "And yeah, I guess I'm watching things here while they're out."

"Well, that's sweet of you, Tina," -- she giggled for him -- "And call me Jim," he shrugged.

"Thank you, Jim."

"Do you smell something, Tina?" he gazed into her eyes.

"Smell something?" She leaned over to prop her elbow on the counter and her chin in her palm and gazed back into his eyes. "Like what?"

"Like... uh..."

"Would you like to walk back to your office, Jim? And discuss some... things?"

"I... uh... yeah..."

"Well, let's GO!" She cooed.

Principal Edwards wrapped up his phone call a couple minutes later and stepped out of his office. Noone. Not Diane, not Louise, not even Nurse Simpson. He shook his head. Diane KNEW that either she or Louise was supposed to be there during working hours to maintain phone coverage.

He waited fifteen minutes until 4:00 in case anyone called, then headed to the grocery store to pick up some items for Tamara.

He'd need to talk to Diane about this tomorrow.

Jonathan Brisbee had had enough. He walked over to the two mothers for the opposing team, irritation showing in his step. "Are we going to play soccer or not?"

"Deborah won't let the kids play unless she's here."

"It's NOT HER that's playing! It's the KIDS playing EACH OTHER! Does she COMPREHEND that?"

"I don't think she wants to lose-- " Rosalyn Applegate started, but Sarah Vail cut her off, "We're not playing until she gets here."

Brisbee turned around and kicked the dirt and turned back. "What does that make you? Two deadweight dingbats?"

"We're not playing until she gets here," Sarah reiterated.

"Well... , " Brisbee drawled, "if we don't play in five minutes, YOU forfeit the game." He walked back to his team's bleachers. The two mothers looked to be talking, just short of wringing their hands. Good! He hoped he WAS stressing them -- so anxious to not risk a loss for Mrs Brady's team that they were nothing but useless quivering hens!

I drove up then, got my bag of equipment out of the trunk and joined my two mothers. "Sorry I'm late," I said, "I got hung up-- "

"Oh! You're here! Thank goodness!" Sarah sighed relief.

"Oh, Mr Brisbee is getting REALLY impatient, Deborah," Rosalyn shared her worries.

"Well, he can just stuff it!"

"We didn't know WHAT to do," Sarah said. "He WAS within his right to call a forfeiture!"

"THERE you are," Brisbee marched toward us. "WHY do you refuse to let your kids play without you present? You don't think they can DO it on their own?"

"Go cool off," I ordered him.

"If I had been this late, you know YOU would have just declared my team forfeit."

"Go sit down, Brisbee!"

"What?! Can't even take the little bit of competition these kids might give you?!"

"Brisbee, I am the manager of the coaches and if you don't go sit down RIGHT NOW, I will remove your name from the coaches rosters!"

He glared at me, but then turned and walked back to his bleachers.

"That's tellin' 'em, Deb!" Rosalyn cheered me.

The kids played.

Twice I had to out-yell Brisbee, but the referee knew which way to make the calls.

We won. Not that there was ever any doubt.

Afterward, I walked over to talk with Brisbee. He needed to be yanked back into line. "Good game, Brisbee."

"Yeah... good game..." He was exhibiting just a twinge of sullenness.

"Maybe you ought to double up on your practice sessions. Then your kids might have a chance of winning."

"Chance of--?! Maybe if YOU didn't manage WHO referees WHICH games, we'd have a chance of winning!"

"Don't try to blame MY referees for the incompetence of YOUR coach," I said bluntly.

"Incomp--?! The reason YOU won't let your kids play when you're not around is that you're AFRAID that the referees might make a STRAIGHT CALL if you're not around to THREATEN them!"

"This is just unsportsmanlike conduct, Brisbee," I declared.

"And rigging games against these poor kids so you can gloat ISN'T?!"

"I'm going to talk to the other coach managers tomorrow, Brisbee," I said tightly. "You won't be coaching any more."

"FINE! You are SUCH a piece of work! You not only want me to bend over to get screwed, you want me to say, 'Thank you, ma'am, may I have another'!"

I walked off.

Hotheads like him are never even a challenge.

Louise shook her head as she awakened the next morning.

Actually, she hadn't really been sleeping. She had been contemplating.

It was a most strange contrast.

On the one hand, she had never thought that she was lesbian. And yet, here she was in Diane's bed with her, having teased and delighted her coworker all night long and been teased and delighted by her. Diane truly was a most amazing woman.

So was Dana Levee. Letting herself be kissed by the pretty honors student yesterday afternoon was Louise's first lesbian act.

It sure wouldn't be her last.

On the opposite hand, Louise HAD always thought that she had a pussy. She had never suspected that her crotch had been deaf, dumb and blind all her life.

But the ol' girl sure woke up yesterday! God, sex was good now! Louise was more than ready to eat, drink and breathe the stuff!

"Hey, lover," Diane rolled over sexily and smiled. "Wanna fuck again?"

"I thought you'd never ask," Louise said as her lips moved to her coworker's.

Well, terror spreads, as they say.

Nurse Simpson did Coach Baker, his son, two guys she picked up at a bar, a waitress at that bar, her landlady and an irate pedestrian that she almost ran over as she drove to work with her finger up her puss.

Louise did her brother, then her father, both of whom live with her. Then she did the cute guy up the hall from her apartment and the UPS guy that made a delivery while she was spreading for her cute neighbor.

Diane did a female teacher, then the male student (age 18, of course) that had been peeking while she did the gal. Then she did the male teacher that had watched while she did the gal and the kid.

Diane got to yearning for Louise again just before midnight and called her to come over, and the two canoodled in an orgasmic haze the rest of the night.

Dana, of course, did eight other men and three other women, each of whom enjoyed porking the honors student and did several others themselves before the day was out.

Anyway, this digression has been to convey two things.

One, the... changes... spread rapidly.

Two, Diane and Louise each had a wet spot between the legs for each other, and that's how they came to be necking a little when...

"Hi, ladies," Tamara Edwards smiled as she walked toward the counter at the front office.

Diane and Louise were in the back corner, facing away from the counter. Diane's tongue was in Louise's mouth. They broke their kiss and exchanged a knowing look.

"What are you two studying so intently over there?" the principal's wife asked pleasantly.

"Oh, nothing," Diane said, and they both turned around to face her.

"Really?" Tamara came around the counter. "You two sure had your heads pressed together like you were studying SOMETHING back there."

"Actually, there IS something," Louise caught Diane's eyes with a look, then glanced back to Tamara. "Would you like to see?"

"Sure," Tamara shrugged and stepped toward them.

"Back here," Louise smiled.

"What's so-- " Tamara began as Diane stepped behind her to cover the activity in case someone stepped into the office just then. Tamara felt Louise's hands grab the sides of her head and the younger woman press her lips to hers.

"Mmmpphth!" Tamara struggled only slightly, too shocked to do anything more.

Louise coughed and something traveled down her tongue and into Tamara's mouth. Tamara winced at the thought of another person's lugie in her--

Then the lugie MOVED!

It lengthened and thinned, then dodged its way past Tamara's tongue and down her throat!

OHGOD! Had the younger woman spit a WORM of some kind into her mouth?!

She felt a brief small pain in the front of her throat, then a second one in the back.

As Louise pulled her lips away, Tamara tried to scream, but got out nothing more than a hoarse breath.

"It's okay, Mrs Edwards," Louise smiled at her and nodded. "Your voice will come back in just a few minutes. You're vocal cords are just temporarily paralyzed. For the transference." Smile and nod.

"What?! Why?!" Tamara coarsely whispered.

Louise and Diane shared a smile. "You won't have to ask why in just a few minutes," Louise told her.

"We should probably get her down behind the counter," Diane said as Louise reached out to caress her breast. "In case anyone comes in."

The two kissed, then one took each side of Tamara and walked her to the counter and tipped her over to set her down on the floor there.

Tamara Edwards felt very strange. She pressed her fists at her crotch.

A jolt of something startled her and she jerked.

The other two women watched her and smiled knowingly.

Another jolt. Another jerk.

It was like her pussy was trying to make a phone call to her brain and, whereas the connection had never gone through before, some new phone company was running things now and putting the call through and... OH FUCKING WOW!

"Uuuunnnnggh!" she moaned quietly as her body started to tingle with imminent orgasm.

"Kind of like God knocking on your door, isn't it?" Louise giggled.

"Uuuuunnnnnggh... !"

"Hi," Ms Garretson smiled across the counter.

"Hi," Diane smiled back as Louise stepped to the corner, where a blanket was laying on the floor, placed there since this morning for just this type of situation.

"Principal Edwards said he wanted to meet with me?" the teacher smiled softly.

"Did he?" Diane asked as Louise grabbed the blanket and threw it over Tamara's body as she went into orgasms.

Ms Garretson frowned slightly -- the other women were acting a little oddly. "Yes -- he left a message for me this morning."

"Well, come around the counter. Let's get you right in to see him." Diane stepped to his door and knocked. "Principal Edwards?" She said as she opened it, "Ms Garretson is here for her meeting with you."

"Thanks, Diane. Has my wife ever shown up? She was supposed to bring some papers by fifteen minutes ago."

"Why, no, sir. But I'll be sure to keep an eye out for her."

"Thank you. Send Ms Garretson in."

Angela Garretson stepped in while Mrs Edwards began trembling beneath the blanket in ecstasy. "You wanted to talk with me, Principal Edwards?"

"Have a seat, Angela."

Angela sat and waited for him to speak.

"Angela, you've taken a special interest in Fawn Taggert, haven't you?"

"No more so than any of my other students, Principal Edwards."

"Some of the other teachers feel that your interest in Fawn may be a little... excessive."

Angela raised an eyebrow. "You are speaking of Deborah Brady. And perhaps her goons. Aren't you?"

"She is one of the complainers, yes."

Angela waited for him to continue.

Edwards sighed. "I don't know how to, uhm... continue this conversation. Ms Garretson, I am just going to be frank with you."

"Please do, sir."

"You may not like what I'm going to say, but it's the simple facts." He took a deep breath. "I don't think I would talk this frankly with any other teacher in the school, but you-- "

She was looking at him, waiting patiently for him to get to the point.

"Angela, what I'm about to say does not leave this room. Agreed?"

"Yes, sir."

"Yes, Mrs Brady's attention has landed on Fawn Taggert and subsequently on you. Brady is like a mutt that has been running around without a leash so long that noone is going to get one on her. Those are the simple facts. She does have undue influence on her fellow teachers, who are afraid of her, and on the parents, whom she can rile up, and on the school board, who are scared of the parents. This situation had developed before I ever got here, and it is still like that to some degree now."

Angela sat quietly, listening.

"Angela, I am working on changing this and I think I am making a dent in it, but it is not entirely corrected yet. It has to proceed in its own time. If I make too strong a stand at this point, she will rile up the parents. Then the board, in fear, will get rid of me.

"At this point, I can whittle away at the control she grips these people in, but if I make too public of a stand, I will lose to her."

Still Angela just sat, listening.

"It's not right what she wants to do to Fawn, it's not right what she wants to do to you. But if we explicitly challenge her now, we will lose. That's... the simple math of it."

"So... what course of action do you propose, Principal Edwards?"

"That we hold. It's not time to confront her yet -- that's a battle we haven't done the preparation to win. I'm throwing out the idea that we relax and be quiet. If she doesn't get a fight out of us, she'll get bored and move on to someone that WILL fight her. That's how she feeds: by playing rigged games against people and then crowing and gloating when she wins the rigged games. If we cheat her of her victory, if we just never engage in these rigged games, there will be no nourishment for her, and she'll move on."

Angela frowned. "Meanwhile, Fawn Tag-- "

"I don't think Fawn has to lose in this. Help her. Talk with her. Help her find out where she wants to go and help her get there. Just do it quietly. If you have an idea or a success with the girl, you don't have to mention it to Brady. It's not like you'll change Brady's mind or anything. People like her don't form opinions as you and I understand them. She selects opinions that can be used to break people so that she can feed on the shame and humiliation when she defeats them. She doesn't use opinions to understand the world, she uses them as tools to feed.