SIX SOUTHERN SENATORS SEXUALLY ASSAULTED
ALL SIX MEN PREGNANT, ACCORDING TO PHYSICIANS.
TWO HOSPITALIZED FOR HYSTERIA, POST TRAUMATIC STRESS SYNDROME
LDS ELDERS REQUIRE RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE ONLY
UTAH SENATOR EXCOMMUNICATED
IMMORAL BEHAVIOR WITH ET ALLEGED
“I was raped,” he says, denying reports he was on drugs when admitted to hospital.
“He was high as a kite, laughing like a lunatic,” reported ER nurse Blanche Smith. “And he was wearing tight jeans. Didn’t some judge just recently rule you can’t rape somebody wearing tight jeans?
THIS ISN’T A BABY, SAYS TV PERSONALITY REQUESTING ABORTION
INFANT ET IMPOSSIBLE TO REMOVE WITHOUT KILLING OVERWEIGHT HOST
INKLEOZESE THREATEN REPRISAL IF LARVAE INJURED
UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL IN EMERGENCY SESSION
ARAB NATIONS DEMAND ACCESS TO INTERMEDIARY,
INSIST ON IMMUNITY FROM PREGNANCY
IMMEDIATE CURE DEMANDED FOR INFECTIOUS UGLY
Benita, bound—LOST WEEKEND
Benita dreamed she was rocking in Mami’s hammock, the one on the back portal of the old house, where she and her brothers had sometimes slept during the summer. It was a soothing motion, though subtly wrong, for her legs were rocking much more widely than her head. As though she’d gotten all tangled up in the hammock and one end had come loose, leaving her dangling upright. She heard one of her brothers moan, and she opened her eyes to locate him and tell him to be still, he was making her seasick.
The portal posts were gone. There was no roof. Only the moonlit sky above her, against treetops that bent and swayed in a soft breeze, just as she did. She tried to move her arms and found she couldn’t. She was wrapped, not uncomfortably tightly, but tight enough that she couldn’t move. She turned her head to see Chad, head on his chest, and beyond him three other figures, long bundles hung in the treetops. And beyond that, heavens, a dozen or more others, just hanging there. Like in theHobbit. Spider food. Rock-a-bye baby, she thought. Rocky-bye. Below her, in a moonlit clearing, stumpy trees wandered about among squat, furry creatures, occasionally turning toward some vacancy and gesturing at it, as though there was someone there.
As, undoubtedly, there was. She remembered at once what had happened. She and Chad had been about to leave, but the Wulivery had bashed in the front windows and grabbed them, and then something had told them firmly to go to sleep. That had to have been a Fluiquosm, one of the vacancies below her in the forest.
She risked another look below. The Wulivery and the Xankatikitiki were busy doing something else and were paying no attention to her. After a time, she realized what it was they were doing and hastily averted her eyes. Evidently they’d stopped somewhere en route in order to hunt. Or maybe they’d just taken something down out of the larder.
Contorting herself, she managed to swing the cocoon until it bumped into Chad. He moaned softly, but did not waken. The membrane that wrapped her was quite elastic. Though her hand was pressed against her side, she could clench her fist, move her fingers, feel with her fingers . . . feel the sharply pointed nail file she had dropped in the large flapped shirt pocket after she had filed down her broken nail. Also in the pocket, yes, by all that was holy, the handgun Chad had given her when he walked in the door. And the translator! She’d pocketed it along with the gun. She’d been all packed. Chad had left the car down below, she was telling him she was ready . . . and that’s when the windows fell in.
Moving carefully, inch by inch, she bent her elbow and moved her hand up, over the pocket flap, then fiddled with the flap, rolling it up under her hand so the hand could go down again, into the pocket. Grasp the nail file. Bend the elbow again, bring the file out of the pocket, jab the membrane she was wrapped in. Flexible. Like a rubber balloon. Not infinitely flexible, however, for it punctured very nicely on about the fourth try. Another puncture just below the first one, then a few above and a few more below, working up and down to make a dotted line, tear here, r-r-rip. Actually, it didn’t rip, which was lucky, or she might have fallen a considerable distance, but it did loosen. After ten minutes of careful effort, the wrapping was loose enough that she could get the gun out with her left hand and pass it across her body to her right hand. After thumbing off the safety, she put it in the right pocket. Chad had pointed out the safety, first thing in the apartment, or she might not have remembered.