Chapter 5: Man In Me

"My god, isn't there any way we can help them Rhokeath? The gangs are controlling everything."

Laura turned away from the window looking at the city to Rhokeath as he replied to her.

"Not now Laura," Rhokeath was calm, as always, "my people are here to extinguish any forces of the Great Extension. If we turn away are focus to policing the city there is a chance something could slip past us. For now, they must take care of themselves."

Lazarus stood in front of the giant pool, staring at his reflection. He glared into his own eyes, and for a brief moment felt a hint of the man he had once been. His memories would return in time, for now, he was just starting to be able to think again. Strange thoughts and images still seemed to interrupt him, distracting him greatly, sometimes driving him to do things he didn't completely understand. But he was learning how to work through them, not through, with them. His mind, like his body, was changing and evolving every time he managed to... feed. Suddenly, he felt the green glow warm his body... someone was close.

"Holy shit, what the fuck IS that thing???"

Lazarus spun himself around and stared at two teenage boys with knives out and a young woman who was screaming uncontrollably.

"I am Lazarus." was all he was able to say. One of the boys ran when he spoke, the unearthly quality of his voice struck fear into their hearts.

The remaining boy held his knife tightly as he gazed upon the creature. The whole thing was made of a slightly translucent yellow gelatin. It was like a centaur, only instead of a horse body, it was like a huge, fat caterpillar, and the human part was distorted, with many arms and an elongated head with no real features but strange eyes and a huge jaw. It had to be a good 40 ft. long and at least 19 or 20 ft. tall. He realized Lazarus was staring at his sister, Isabel, and it was smiling. He knew that look anywhere, and he glanced at his sister. She was a tan Italian, with beautiful brown hair that flowed past her shoulders. She had on a white t-shirt with a denim jacket and jeans. Her breasts were huge, bigger than any other 18 year old's he knew, and you could even tell she had tight abs with her clothes on. He knew what the zombies had done to girls, and he expected no less now.

"You'll never touch her!" he shouted as he flung his knife at the creature.

Lazarus felt nothing at the knife slipped into his body and then fell out again. He was angered by the boy's lack of respect, and he began to stretch his legs out. They became longer and longer, like a spider's, until he was an extra 10 feet in the air. He charged and the ran the boy through with one of his legs in one swipe. He turned his attention to the girl who was paralyzed with fear. She could now see the large, 2 feet long and 7 inches thick, erect penis poking forward underneath Lazarus's body as he climbed on top of her.

He ripped her jacket and shirt off along with her bra. Then he positioned his body over her, he was so big that she couldn't even see his torso any more, just his giant caterpillar underbelly suspended above her. She realized that in addition to the penis, there were hundreds if not thousands of small phallus-like protrusions hanging from the body, wiggling with anticipation and dripping with fluid. Lazarus bent over some as two tentacles stretched down and pushed her breasts together. Then he took his main penis and stuck it between them, It's base at her chest but stretching all the way past her head. It began to hump her breasts wildly. Isabel did not even know what to think, she was scared and disgusted out of her mind, but the strange goo made her aroused and suddenly she found herself kissing and licking the penis as it thrust. Lazarus' cock slid between her breasts at an incredible pace, it didn't even fit, only the lower half really felt the full pressure of Isabel's breasts. Still, it was more than enough to keep Lazarus going. His whole body began to tingle. Lazarus began to pant and grunt, and suddenly he erupted with cum that nearly drowned Isabel, covering her entire upper body and head in hot white sticky stuff. Lazarus felt the energy pumping through his body as he began to change and shift again. His tendrils wrapped around Isabel and he slithered away with her as his body grew.

"You gotta help us mister!!!"

The boy was screaming at Garret, rambling about some kind of monster he saw that must have attacked him and his sister.

"Calm down son," he put his hands on the boy's shoulders, "Now tell me where your brother and sister are."

The boy lead Garret to a large monument surrounded by a pool of water.

"They were here not five minutes ago... It must have taken them, you gotta help me find em!!!"

Garret wanted to say no, but the boy was near tears, he was only about 13 or so, and he thought about his daughters... Garret reluctantly agreed to let the boy come with him. If there really was some creature out there in the city, perhaps it was responsible for his daughters' disappearance as well.

Garret knew of only one other safe place in the Dead Zone to gather information about the creature and his daughters, it was an evil place, but the gangs had called a peace treaty there, agreed it would be the one place where they could roam without fighting, they called it Babel. It was called Babel because it was where different gang leaders met to discuss possible alliances, treaties, etc. Even they understood that there was no hope of survival without working together to some degree. Because he was armed and could handle himself, in addition to having nothing valuable, especially women, he believed he could pass through Babel untroubled.

There was a huge archway stood the road with a beautiful graffiti tag reading "Babel" like an epitaph on a tombstone.

"You sure you want to come with me, this is heavy gang territory and no place for a boy."

The boy, who Garret had learned was named Georgie, nodded apprehensively. He was brave, Garret thought, but he was small for his age and probably wouldn't last a minute on his own, but there was no turning back. The two of them passed under the bridge and made there way towards the center of Babel.

Garret followed graffiti tags to lead him to the central meeting place at Babel. There was no one in sight, and it occurred to Garret that there must be a meeting going on. Georgie watched Garret closely, he was old, maybe in his 50's, but he was a huge man, and he seemed to understand things about the world around him that Georgie couldn't sense. Garret had a rifle with a scope, like something in a sniper game he once played before the crash, strapped to the side of his backpack along with a pistol in a holster, a flak jacket, and a knife strapped to his ankle. Garret told him that he had been a police officer, and was a former swat team member until he left the squad when his first daughter was born because it was too dangerous. Georgie tried to copy Garret's actions, hoping that he might learn how to survive.

"What were you and your siblings doing out alone Georgie?"

"Well," said Georgie as they walked, "we were going to try to get to a place called Hometown. We had heard about it, and my brother, Carmine, said that we needed to move there before the gangs got my sister Isabel... they're both around 18."

Suddenly Garret told Georgie to hush. They had arrived. The meeting place was a fallout shelter beneath an old building. Garret knocked.

"Who the fuck are you?" said a voice behind them, "Don't turn around, just answer."

Garret spoke, "My name is Garret, this is my friend Georgie, we are here for information."

"Go home, we don't know anything here. This place is for gangs only. You're lucky I don't kill both of you right here."

"Listen, we're looking for information on some kind of monster that's been roaming the city. We think it might have taken my daughter and his sister, and if it exists, we figured some of you "

The guard was quiet. Then he walked up next to them and unlocked the door.

"Go in." he said, "You guys got a lot of balls comin here on your own, don't pull any funny stuff down there or it'll be your head."

Lazarus felt the energies radiating from the girls he had captured thus far. He had become very powerful, almost 40 girls had fallen before him. His body, and his mind, were developing rapidly. But now he was frustrated now, screaming with anger. His new form was unsuitable. He was shaped almost like a giant peanut, except his torso lifted slightly and there was a resemblance almost to a giant human fetus... He could not move. His legs were small and weak, they were so short and he was so fat that they did not even touch the ground, his arms were long enough to reach past his body, but they were slim and fragile, and his tendrils were too weak to move him anywhere. For now he was stuck like some wounded child on his back, his gigantic belly thrust so far up in the air that he could not even see his penis. The upper ball of the "peanut" was smaller and his head, which is why it was so imbalanced. His face, was now reminiscent of a human one, but it looked like the face of a person who had been smashed on one side by a car and the features were grossly out of proportion. All in all, he was a good 25 feet tall and 40 feet long. Perhaps most frustrating besides his immobility, was that he could sense his main penis was now barely 4 inches long and an an inch wide. It had shrunk after each of his last encounters... Why was this happening? What possible plan could the Great Extension have that would involve him transforming into something so useless? Lazarus could sense the warm green glow of a girl nearby... so strange... he felt he almost recognized her.