Mimic

An old woman wanders in from the rain. She shakes herself in the entrance and takes a long look around the room. What she finds is simple: a few tables, a worn bar, and a few quiet regulars. She doen’t look at us, and doesn’t notice us looking at her.

She sits at the bar. A few coins clatter on the stained wood. None of us move. She shifts in her seat. A bartender emerges from the backrooms. Coins are collected, a drink exchanged. She cringes at the taste, but says nothing. She’s trapped here by the rain, after all.

Her slurps and swallows are all we hear in that small room. The bartender waits. She finishes the drink. We’re impressed. People don’t usually drink to the dregs. The bartender washes out the glass and pours another before retreating back into the darkness behind the bar.

As she drinks, she takes a closer look at us. She sees a number of average-looking people. Drab clothes. Sullen eyes that don’t quite see what’s in front of them. Glasses full to the brim. Not one other person has taken a sip. And we’re still staring at her.

This is our favorite part. The moment when curiosity turns to dread.

She slides her unfinished drink across the bar and collects her coat. We watch her walk to the door. She doesn’t look at us.

The door is locked, as if of its own accord.

“The rain is cold,” we say. “Why don’t you stay awhile?”

She shoves one of us aside. Grabs the glass, hurls it at us. It shatters on a head. One of our bodies goes down. But the rest of us only get a little wet. We don’t stop. She runs behind the bar. Into the darkness beyond.

Humans always do this. They look for a way out, even if it means diving into the beast’s gullet.

She finds the rest of us. Long, fleshy corridors lined with bodies. Some in various stages of digestion, others preserved for use. We could wake some of them and end the charade, but we’re just starting to have fun.

She runs and runs, down and down. The corridors seem to go on forever. They don’t of course, not really. We simply shift and turn them so she never finds a dead end. It’s always interesting to see just how far a human will run before they collapse. This one is most impressive. She does not stop for hours.

When she does begin to grow tired, we show her one last nightmare, one last horror to break her mind wide open and ready for our tendrils to sink into soft, grey flesh.

“Brain” is too simple a term. At the core of us is a central mechanism, which organizes our bodies and communicates with other collectives. The undulating mass of tentacles and flesh is a body all its own.

To our surprise, her mind does not shatter. She has seen much, it seems. Still, if she doesn’t become a usable body, she can be a digestible one.

She takes a bottle of distilled liquor from her coat. She clearly wishes to dull the pain. We’ve seen it before. Then she stuffs a kerchief in the mouth of the bottle. This is unfamiliar to us.

Our curiosity turns to dread as she strikes a match. This little human has not come to die. She’s come to kill.