The warehouse we were approaching didn't look menacing in the daylight. In fact it looked like it was kept clean all of the windows were still in their frames. At night I'm sure it was a different story, since darkness can turn any situation into one eerie in nature.
"This is it." Andy slipped the piece of paper into a cupholder in the front seat and I followed everyone out of the car in their new hosts. The Andy remained in his large form, but Remi and Luke were sporting their own thick bodybuilders and I had to admit that they looked good. If we weren't in peril, I imagine I would be spending some time enjoying their bodies in private.
"Stay behind us just in case this is a trap." Luke smiled at me. I had noticed he had started to become warmer with more time spent together, which was actually something I could really get behind. He was different than Remi. Remi tended to enjoy the time we spent, but Luke was actually savoring it. Even so, I did as I was told and remained behind the group of hunks as we approached the entrance.
The door creaked open and we could hear music playing. The sound of it was relatively horrifying, but the closer we got the clearer it became. In the center of a large space was a well lit island laboratory. Glasses of liquid lined shelves, varying in color and volume and in the center was a man pouring a small amount of powder into a beaker. The man had an odd familiarity to him, I swear I remembered his face somewhere.
"Ah! I was expecting you, I'm Dr. Powell." He says, his eyes looked larger than his head through the goggles he was wearing. He looked like a cartoon almost, but as soon as he stripped off the goggles and replaced them with a pair of glasses I had suddenly realized where I knew him from.
"You were the guy on the news trying to cure that disease that gone around. I remember your interviews." He had been part of my research paper, but he was classified as a conspiracy theorist about an alien species invading Earth. It was odd at the time, but now it seems like he was right.
"I was on the news, a lot. I'm glad you all found me because I think I found a cure." He finished up what he was doing and went to a large refrigerator, pulling out a syringe filled with an orange liquid. It was a small amount, but the needle seemed large and the sight of it made me a little woozy. Dr. Powell then grabbed another syringe filled with a blue liquid.
"Does it work?" I asked, suddenly realizing I was the only one asking questions. The other three stood behind me like an intimidating posse.
"I should say I created it, which took a lot of time. I am certain it works, but I need to test it, this would just require your bug friends to hop out of those husks so that one of them can become ill with the blue vein virus and then allow me to cure it. I have been able to create a fast acting version of blue vein, that way we don't have to wait for the incubation time, and the vaccine for it should be relatively instant." He held the syringe up. The three bodybuilders looked at each other to see what the other would do, and Andy stepped forward. I was almost relieved by this, having known him the least amount of time, but I was still worried. What if it didn't work?
"I'll do it." Andy stepped close to Dr. Powell who offered him a chair. Andy took it, his large frame barely able to fit inside it, and he leaned his head back. Andy appeared as a bump, travelling from the neck and then out onto his husk's face. He remained still and the bug seemed to nod as Dr. Powell leaned in with the syringe. He injected it, a small amount of the blue substance into Andy, causing it to wince. The tiny legs shrunk together and suddenly those notable blue markings appeared all over it. Dr. Powell recognized it and then brought the other syringe, injecting another small amount into Andy as it winced in pain. The room was tense as we all watched and just as quickly as the blue markings appeared they disappeared.
"Wow." I said in awe. Andy popped back inside of his husk, standing up with a grin on his face and looking down at himself as though to check for those blue lines that plagued their species.
"It really worked." Andy boomed and feeling a bit rejuvenated he flexed both his arms.
"I was attempting to work on a powder that would allow me to spill a little bit into the water system, essentially making every human who drank water immune to the disease. This would allow safe transfer into other hosts especially since the human body can carry the diseases without any sort of sign until their body has been entered." Dr. Powell slid the blue syringes back into their spot and I had noticed there were quite a few bottles of the orange liquid lined up behind it.
"And what exactly is the incubation period?" I said, suddenly worried about Remi and Luke.
"Do not worry, I'll just vaccinate them and they should be safe. Their human hosts will just need to drink a little bit of the water with the powdered version of it to ensure that they can remain in their bodies until the population becomes safe enough." Dr. Powell asked the two of them to sit down and they repeated what Andy just went through.
"And how long will that take? What can I do to help?" I asked, watching the injection happen as well as them both chugging a glass of powdered water.
"We'll just need to start small, but it shouldn't take longer than a year. At least they will be safe inside them." He said. He walked over and grabbed another syringe, sitting down in his office chair and chugging a glass of the mixed drink himself. He sighed as he felt the wave of relief wash over him and then I watched as he leaned his head back and another bug crawled out of his throat. He commanded his husk to inject the orange liquid into him and as his body set down the syringe, he climbed back inside his husk. With stretch he looked at me with a smile.
"You're a -" I stammered.
"Yes. I needed to be a human in order to find a cure. There's only so much I can do in my original form." He smiled at me.
"But this is so different from -" I had turned and pointed at the other hulking men in the room.
"Yes, well, I chose young and nerdy, it helped me get where I needed to be." He nodded.
From the other end of the room there was a clinking of metal, sending everyone onto his alert. Suddenly, there was a group of men entering, all of various sizes with metal pipes and weapons. They all looked like they came from a construction lot, with their neon vests and hard hats still on their heads.
"Told you we would be back. Now there are more of you." The one in the center took a few steps forward, inhaling the scent of the bugs inhabiting the four men in front of me and then suddenly the rest of the construction workers growled as they charged us. Remi, Luke and Andy stepped out in front of Dr. Powell and myself, grabbing whatever object they could use as a weapon and then I heard the first blow as pipe hit microscope. Remi pushed the machine back, sliding with a bit of spark before jamming the scientist machine right into the man's face. He got knocked back and I could see Andy fending off two more of the men. All of them must have been possessed by these pig creatures, their bodies reeking of sex and anger. Dr. Powell looked panicked as the three bodybuilders fought of the possessed enemies, and I looked over the table to see Lucias holding back. With the three of our biggest guys held up, I realized he was looking for me.
"Wait don't." I reached for Dr. Powell as he tried to slink to the fridge, grabbing the syringes as quickly as possible. A few of them rolled out of his hands and across the floor, an orange vial hitting my shoe. I was distracted long enough to look back up and see Lucias spot me. I could see him putting the pieces together as Powell hurried away from the fridge and his target had suddenly changed.
"Leave me alone!" Dr. Powell said, and I grabbed an empty syringe from the table, running up behind Lucias as he was dragging our scientist away and jabbed the needle into his neck. I felt the tip snap off, which made me stumble back in shock as Lucias turned around angry with blood dripping from his neck. With a wide swing, he knocked me hard enough back that I had fallen into the metal table and rolled over it, my head hitting the hard cement floor.
With blurry vision, I tried to stand back up, stumbling as Remi and Luke pinned down their foes and beat them into submission. Andy was being held down by two of them and once Luke and Remi finished with their original enemy they went to help Andy take the other two down. With brute force, Andy was able to swing one of them over a chair almost snapping them in half while Luke and Remi pulled the other off and slammed them into the wall. I blinked, tripping over a spilled vial, and landed in glass. I pointed over at Lucias who was dragging Dr. Powell away and then I went black. The last thing I heard was the sound of skidding tires as a vehicle drove away in the chaos.