Dominant Species Volume One -- Natural Selection (Dominant Species Series) Read Online Free Page B

door half-expecting to see Jack Delacroix with his shotgun.
    “Frogs,” that
what she called the gray hunters, “frogs.” Mary knew about frogs, she’d put one in her mouth once.
    Then there were the goons.
    “Goon” wasn’t exactly accurate, but that’s what Mary called them
anyway. They weren’t goons like a thug or hoodlum was a goon, but were huge,
misshapen things, powerful and small-headed like the goons in the old Popeye
cartoons. Grunt, worker, peon, big
bastard, drone —she’d heard them called many things since she’d been taken,
but she liked goon best. It was an ugly name; just ugly enough to dull by insult
some of the horror they created.
    There had been two of them that night and one of them carried Jack
Delacroix’s body in a woven sack draped over its massive back like a toy. One
of Jack’s arms had been torn off at the shoulder, and she could see the white
bone. Blood flowed down the goon’s back and leg from the ragged wound. The goon
was almost casually holding the severed arm out to the gray creature that sat
on its haunches gnawing and pulling off pieces of meat from it. The other goon
had its attention fixed on Mary, riveting her with a predatory stare from deep
sockets where its eyes should have been.
    Mary had never screamed in earnest in her life that she could
remember but she had screamed then. It was more of a “whoop” than a scream, and
it came out completely with a will of its own. Some governor truncated the
energy-wasting whoop before it was completely done. She raised the spanner and
threw it with the force and accuracy that only the short stop on the Honey
Bee’s Butt Busters softball team could achieve. The closest goon dodged the
wrench with a quick twist of its ugly head, and that’s all she could remember.
    Goon-things.
Frog-things. Things, things, things. Ugly damned gray hunter things.
    Pushing the memories of that awful night from her mind, she slid
the last of the gunk off her calf and foot and walked out of the tube into the
adjoining chamber. She shook and wiped off what water she could as she looked
over the pile of clothes in the center of the floor. She picked up a big soft
cotton shirt and dried herself off with it, then chose another to put on, a
plain blue work shirt. She skipped right over the dresses and soft blouses. She
couldn’t understand how anyone would even think of putting on a little
sleeveless blouse here, but she had seen that woman Nancy doing just that.
    The pants were a little more difficult but she finally found a
pair of denims she thought would fit pretty good and put those on. Socks were a
real problem: socks were underwear, and she refused to put on someone else’s
underwear. She dug around until she found a matching pair of high-top canvas
basketball shoes and put them on—without socks. The shoes were big, but to hell
with it, at least they’d keep her feet off the sticky floor. The pants were
long, so she bent over and rolled them up a time or two. She looked down at the
effect. She liked the look.
    There, she thought. Sweet enough to kiss.
    When she turned around she saw Tom Moon sitting in the curve of
the wall. He had that shit-eating little smirk on his face and it occurred to
her that he had been there silently watching and smirking all the time she was
getting dressed. Her anger flared up, but she kept a lid on it. There was no
way she would let this wiry little prick get to her. Better to let him think he
was so insignificant that he had exactly no impact on her, even when he watched
her naked.
    “Can’t you announce your presence, creep,” she said easily.
    She ambled over to within a few feet of him and continued to
button her shirt, hoping the stringy prick would get a last little glimpse of
her tit—just as she covered it up from his nasty gaze.
    “When I want to,” he said.
    Mary saw a piece of goo on his cheek. On Tom it looked oddly like
an identifying badge or namesake. She grinned at it.
    “You’ve got