The following is a story of erotic mind control. Anyone under 18 or offended by material of an erotic nature should read no further. The events and persons depicted herein are entirely fictional and should not be taken as representing anything or anyone from real life.
Synopsis: Alien parasites arrive on Earth and drain the minds of humans during sex in order to reproduce.
Mindf***ers
Author’s Note: The physicist Enrico Fermi once observed that if intelligent aliens existed, astronomers should be able to detect signs of their civilizations. Noting that no such signs had been seen, he asked, “Where are they?” Decades later, we have still found no evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence.
Maybe this is why. . . .
PROLOGUE:
The huge pod-vessel hurtled through the void. It had been traveling for countless centuries, riding the particle-winds between the stars. Now, at long last, its journey was nearing an end.
It had passed through other star-systems, but none of them had possessed what the pod’s dormant occupants needed. This one, its single parent star a warm yellow in color, was different. The pod’s senses had detected the signals while the star was still little more than a dot ahead of it, barely distinguishable from the other bright dots which speckled the black of space. Now, closer in, it was clear the transmissions came from the third planet in the system. The pod had unfurled its huge sail-membrane and begun to tack against the pressure of the light and particles from the yellow sun to guide itself toward the planet.
The target world revealed itself as a blue-green globe, swathed in clouds of water vapor. The signals which had drawn the pod-vessel’s attention came from sources all over the globe, but preferentially from the areas not covered by either ice or liquid water. The pod’s instincts told it this was a promising sign. There were such things as false signals, and other pods had perished following them—but this signal was true.
A landing site was selected, and the pod retracted its sail. The heat of re-entry would germinate it, so that its occupants would be ready to awaken when impact cracked its shell. Then they would seek out the creatures whose activity had drawn the pod’s attention, and the cycle of life would turn once more.
What passed for the mind of the pod-vessel dissolved in a blaze of flame as the strange traveler plunged through the atmosphere. The pod fragmented into smaller chambers, each following its own trajectory, scattering across the surface of the world. The separate pod-chambers had just enough control to instinctively avoid landing in the large expanses of water which covered most of the planet. Their targets did not live there. They felt nothing as they struck the ground and burst, releasing their contents.
Chapter I: The Arrival
“C’mon! This way!” The voice was young and eager. “The TV said the impact site was around here somewhere!” There was the sound of crashing as a number of large bodies pushed their way through the plant life.
They had no idea they were being watched. But they were. Things without eyes or ears saw and heard them; creatures without brains or nerves examined them with alien senses, scanned their bodies and minds, and began to change. . . . Peter Davis was an avid rock collector. When the TV news had reported on the massive meteor shower which had occurred the previous night, he’d seen a perfect opportunity to get his hands on a unique specimen. He’d gathered together a group of his friends and set out for the area near town the broadcast had labeled as a likely site where a large meteorite fragment might have landed.
Something certainly had happened. There was an odd smell in the air, almost like burning wiring, and the animals in these woods were silent. Peter’s pulse quickened. He felt an odd prickling sensation in his head for a few moments; then it went away.
Idly, he noticed he’d gotten separated from the group. He was about to move back in the direction of their voices when he saw the girl.
She was beautiful. Gorgeous. At eighteen, Peter had his share of erotic fantasies; this babe might have stepped right out of them. Rich honey-blonde hair cascaded to her waist. Wide green eyes looked at him out of a model’s face. Breasts that had to be at least 44 DD adorned a torso which narrowed to a tiny waist before widening out to broad hips. Long legs tapered gracefully to small feet, matching the dainty hands at the ends of her slender arms. Her complexion was a creamy white—all over. She was completely nude.
Stunned, Peter approached this apparition and asked, “Who are you? Are you all right?” He wanted to take her in his arms, and comfort her, and—and—! He felt like an idiot.
The other regarded him calmly. The basic scan of his mind it—she, now—had instinctively performed had given it—her—only a little understanding of his language. She knew now, though, that this species came in two sexes, and had drawn an image of this male’s most-desirable mate from him to use in reshaping her body. Everything about her was now patterned to arouse this male. It was working; she could smell the changes taking place in his body as he neared her. Soon he would be ready. She could hardly wait.
It had been a long time since she had last eaten.
Peter was puzzled. The bodacious beauty still hadn’t spoken a word. She looked confused, as if she didn’t understand English. He wondered if she was in shock. Maybe there’d been an accident; that might explain what she was doing wandering naked in the forest.
Suddenly she was very close, and her arms went around his neck. Her lips pressed against his, and her magnificent body ground into his. There was a gentle perfume coming from her hair. Peter forgot what he had been thinking. He would never remember it. He would never think again, about anything.
The boy and his partner worked together to remove his clothes, then sank down together to the cool, soft forest floor. Their bodies moved together, and Peter’s mind dissolved in animal ecstasy. He never noticed as the creature into whom he was desperately thrusting siphoned his memories and intelligence into herself. This was more than the simple scan the other had performed earlier; now, his mind was drawn out of him, leaving nothing behind.
When she was done, the woman-creature from the stars briefly lay entangled in the limbs of her victim, enjoying the aftermath of sex and assimilating the new knowledge she had taken. Then she rose, leaving Peter lying on the ground; she had no more need of him. The sexual act between them, combined with her consumption of his mind, had begun a series of changes within her. A few more such encounters and she would be ready to reproduce in the manner of her own species.
Two of her companions from the pod-chamber which had crashed nearby also found prey among the rock hunters. One of the victims was another male; one was a female. In each case, their attackers assumed physical forms drawn from their sexual fantasies. And in each case, their prey was left physically intact but mentally vacant.
The three aliens who had fed now knew there was a large settlement of the natives not far off. That was good. Their companions were growing hungrier, and would need to find prey soon or they would have to return to dormancy or die. And they themselves would need purely physical nourishment soon, too, to feed the bodies they had created. The native grouping would be useful for both purposes.
Guided by their stolen memories, they found the vehicles the young rock hunters had used to reach the woods. With the skills they now possessed, operating the . . . cars, that was the word . . . was simple enough. They set forth for their new hunting ground.
It had been a disappointing outing for the young meteor hunters, for none of them had found anything that looked like a crashed meteorite. They wouldn’t have; the pod-chamber had deployed its parachute membrane high enough so that it hadn’t even left a crater when it hit, and the organic material of the chamber had crumbled away rapidly once it had opened. Finally, they went looking for the missing members of their party so that they could all go home.
They found Peter first, and a panicky cell phone call summoned the police. It only got worse when the other two absentees, Dick Wallace and Sharon Blaine, were found in the same vegetative condition. The cops had summoned ambulances for the victims and interrogated their friends, who by then were bordering on hysteria. It didn’t do any good. None of them had any idea what had happened.
“Shit!” Sheriff Tucker swore. He knew the Wallace boy personally, and neither of the other two had ever been in trouble with his office. To see them like this, vacant-eyed and drooling, was a horror.
“What d’you think, Sheriff?” asked Deputy Walters. “Drugs?”
“I dunno,” Tucker responded. “Far’s I know, none of this bunch has ever been into that crap. And I never heard of no case where you had three OD’s together like this. If it’s drugs, it’s gotta be something new.” He spat, feeling slightly ill. “The hospital’ll do a full screen, anyway. Maybe that’ll give us a line on what happened.”
It didn’t. The tests took all day, and came up negative, not only for drugs but for toxic chemicals and infections. There was no sign of physical injury, either. The one finding which turned up made no sense.
“Their brains have smoothed out,” Dr. Mendel said. “Human brains grow more convoluted with age, to allow them to grow in volume without getting too big for the skull. It’s as if their brains had been regressed to infancy. I’ve never even heard of anything like this.”
“Can you do anything, Doctor?” Tucker was afraid he knew the answer, but he had to ask.
“No, I’m afraid not,” responded the doctor. “I don’t think anyone can.”
Tucker sighed and turned away. He braced himself. Now he’d have to face the families.
The aliens came into town unnoticed. The commotion surrounding the discovery of their victims had diverted attention from the fact that the kids’ cars had been taken.
They would need a place to stay. The female who had drained Peter had assumed leadership by a kind of seniority, as the first to find prey. Her second-in-command was the male who had snared Sharon Blaine. The two of them paid a visit to the Clearwater Hotel, the largest rooming house in town.
“We need a set of rooms,” the male said. Calculating, he said, “Four will do.”
“Four!” The hotel clerk was incredulous. “For just the two of you?” Her mouth quirked.
The male alien leaned closer, and took one of the clerk’s hands in his. “Some friends of ours will be staying with us.” He began to feed, carefully.
The clerk’s eyes glazed. The creature holding her hand was more cunning than it had been when it had arrived on Earth. It knew how to use its abilities to sap just enough of a prey-creature’s mind to make it helplessly suggestible.
“That’s right,” the man-thing soothed. “Relax. We just need four rooms.”
“Four rooms,” the clerk repeated, giggling stupidly. “S-sh-shurrrr. Jus’ sign right here, tha’s all.” She pushed the hotel register across the counter with her free hand.
The alien signed the register, giving a name it made up out of the memories it had stolen from the human female it had encountered before. Like its two metamorphosed companions, it understood English perfectly now, in both its spoken and written forms. The knowledge would not last; eventually, if he did not feed on more natives with the same skill, it would be consumed and lost. For now, though, it was perfectly adequate.
He let go of the clerk’s hand. With a silly smile on her face, she said, “That be cash or . . . or, whatchacallit, charge, honey?” She leaned across the counter, thrusting her ample chest at him. He could sense that she was physically drawn to him, and with her mental functions weakened, she was having a hard time focusing on her job instead of on mating with him.
“We’ll settle that later, when we leave,” was his response. “That’ll be fine, won’t it?”
“Settle it later . . . when you leave,” the clerk murmured. “That’ll be . . . fine.” She giggled again.
The male gestured, and the others came in. They had been careful to avoid being seen by the natives. All of them had by now assumed human form, but only those who had taken prey were completely convincing. The others had managed only approximations, looking more like clothing dummies than living humans. They didn’t yet fully understand about clothing, either; most were nude or nearly so.
The female clerk saw them and burbled, “These your friends?” Their appearance didn’t bother her; it didn’t occur to her that anything unusual was happening.
“Yes, they are,” the male alien said. “We’ll be going to our rooms now. Thank you for your assistance.”
“Sure thing, honey,” the stupefied woman said.
That night, the aliens went out to feed. The town was no metropolis, but enough locals were out and about to provide the creatures with adequate prey. By the next morning, all of them had fully natural-looking human forms—and there were several dozen more mindless husks among the citizenry.
One of them was Dr. Mendel. He’d been on his way back to the hospital, called away from home when the first cases were brought in. On his way across the medical facility’s parking lot, he’d seen a gorgeous, naked redhead.
That would have caught his attention under any circumstances. With his mind on the weird cases he’d seen and the additional ones he was now on his way to examine, he assumed she was another victim, and went to her.
“Who are you?” he asked, staring into beautiful blue eyes. She didn’t answer, just stared back at him. He couldn’t look away from her, and after a moment, couldn’t think why he should want to. She drew closer, and their arms went around each other. Heedless of the fact that he was out in the open, the doctor stripped off his clothing, helped inexpertly by the magnificent female in front of him. Shortly, the two of them settled to the blacktop.
The doctor’s mind whirled as the woman caressed him. He had just time to marvel at how she resembled the woman of his most private fantasies before thought vanished forever into a hot pink haze. When the woman rose, Dr. Mendel remained unmoving on the pavement, smiling. His eyes were open, but empty.
The alien female moved away. She would need to find clothes, she mused. She understood such matters now, along with much, much more. She would need clothes, to be able to pass unnoticed among humans she did not choose as prey—and then she would need to do other things made possible by what she had taken from Dr. Mendel.
She smiled. Already she could feel her body beginning to prepare to produce a new generation. A few more full feedings and it would be time.
The next morning, the town was in an uproar. In less than twenty-four hours, over forty people had been turned into human vegetables. An entire wing of the hospital had been converted into a ward for victims of this—whatever it was.
Someone—it was never established who—called Washington, and then the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Agents of the FBI and Homeland Security came in, along with CDC medical experts.
One of the FBI men, after examining the victims, muttered, “Just like the others.”
Sheriff Tucker heard him. “What the hell do you mean by that? What others?” A bland-faced man from Homeland Security cut in, “You don’t need to know, Sheriff. We’re on it.”
Tucker bristled. “What kind of crack is that? This’s still America, ain’t it? And these are my people—friends, neighbors, folks I’ve known for years. Don’t you tell me I don’t fucking need to know!”
The FBI agent who’d made the initial slip spoke up. “It’s all right, Sheriff.” After a hostile glance at his DHS counterpart, he went on. “We’re investigating several more communities which seem to have developed similar problems. And we’re starting to get reports that it’s happening in other countries, too.”
A large crowd witnessed the confrontation. No one noticed that the gathering included a number of individuals no one in town recognized. The strangers, by instinct, arranged themselves among the locals so that no two of them stood near each other, minimizing attention.
The senior female and her second-in-command were among the watchers. So was the one who had taken Dr. Mendel. That female was now dressed in a conservative woman’s suit, its jacket open and its shirt opened just enough to offer a tempting view of her startling cleavage. The owner of the clothing store from which the outfit had been taken currently occupied one of the beds in the hospital’s new special ward. He wouldn’t be worrying that he hadn’t been paid; he no longer remembered what money was.
The leader female conferred with the others through the communal mental link they possessed. THE NATIVES ARE GROWING AGITATED, she observed. Dr. Mendel’s attacker responded, THEY FEAR A CONTAGIOUS DISEASE HAS EMERGED AMONG THEM. Concepts flowed through the link. The aliens had all encountered the idea of “contagious disease” in their own stolen memories, but the doctor’s assailant offered them a far richer knowledge of the subject. THE NEW ONES ARE EMISSARIES OF THEIR LAW ENFORCEMENT AND MEDICAL LEADERSHIP. More concepts passed through the link. THEY HAVE COUNTERPARTS AT OTHER LANDING SITES. THEY INTEND TO LEARN WHAT IS HAPPENING AND DETERMINE WHAT MEASURES ARE NECESSARY TO STOP IT. TO STOP US.
THAT MUST NOT HAPPEN, the senior male commented, unnecessarily.
The senior female nodded, a human gesture borrowed from Peter Davis’s memories. WE MUST PROCEED CAREFULLY. IF WE SIMPLY TAKE THESE NEW ONES, THE OTHERS WHO SENT THEM MAY RESPOND WITH FORCE. WE ARE NOT STRONG ENOUGH YET TO PREVAIL IF THAT HAPPENS.
The senior male suggested, WE CAN CONTROL THEM THE WAY I HAVE TAKEN CONTROL OF THE ROOM CLERK AT THE HOTEL. DIVERT THEM. THEN, AFTER WE HAVE REPRODUCED, SOME OF US CAN GO BACK WITH THEM TO THEIR LEADERSHIP CENTERS AND EXTEND OUR POWER.
The senior female concurred. IT WILL NOT TAKE LONG, she assured her followers. PERHAPS A FEW OF THIS PLANET’S DAYS. And once they had reproduced, the new generation would reach maturity in just a few more days. All they needed was enough physical nourishment, which could easily be obtained—and, once they matured, a supply of thinking creatures as prey to make it possible for them, in turn, to produce further generations. By comparison, the natives’ method of propagation was grossly inefficient, taking many years from conception to maturity.
That would eventually be a problem, the leader-female knew. Her kind risked consuming all of their prey supply. Plans would have to be made.
For the moment, though . . .
The senior female approached the FBI agent who had revealed the government’s awareness of other landing sites. “May I speak to you for a moment, privately?”
The agent looked her up and down appreciatively and said, “Why not?” The senior female took hold of the agent’s arm in a gesture also borrowed from Peter’s memories, and the two of them moved off out of sight of the crowd.
Once she was sure they were safe from casual observers, the alien struck.
She reached into the male’s mind. She saw that he found her present appearance very attractive, but there was another image coded into his brain, of the female which was his sexual ideal Her body flowed, losing several inches in height. Its skin darkened slightly, and its hair turned jet-black and perfectly straight. Other changes subtly adjusted her figure and the planes of her face. When she was done, no human would have recognized her as the woman he had walked off with.
“H-holy . . . !” The FBI man was stunned. “How’d you—!”
“Shh,” the woman soothed, brushing his lips shut with dainty fingers. “Look into my eyes, and relax. Nothing is wrong. Listen to my voice, and let it guide you, and relax.” She reached into his mind and drained just enough of it to make him powerless to resist her suggestions. “Relax, and look into my eyes, and relax, and do as my voice tells you to do. You trust me absolutely, don’t you?” Her new appearance worked with her mental manipulations to destroy the male’s resistance; he wanted to surrender to his ideal woman.
“Yes,” the agent whispered. “Trust you . . . absolutely.”
“You will help me in any way I ask?”
“Help you . . . in any way you ask.” The FBI man was weaving gently on his feet. If the alien woman hadn’t been holding his arm, he might have fallen over.
“That’s good,” the alien said. “Now listen carefully: you will help me and my friends. You will do everything you can to make sure those who came with you report that everything is under control here, and to make sure everything is under control—our control. If you see or hear anything which your superiors would consider to be wrong or dangerous, you will forget it at once. You will do this because you trust me absolutely. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” came the dazed response. “I understand.”
“Good,” the alien leader said. “Then let’s rejoin the others. When we do, I will again look the way I did before. You will act normally, and you will not remember this encounter or seeing me change. But you will obey me without question from now on.”
“Rejoin the others,” echoed the dazed government man. “You will look the way you did before. I will not remember this encounter or seeing you change. I will obey you without question from now on.”
The two of them rejoined the townspeople and their human and inhuman visitors.
Agent Ferris blinked. For just a moment, he seemed to have nodded off. A very good-looking blonde was moving away from him into the crowd. He sighed, wishing he’d spoken to her.
The object of his regard communicated with her companions. Several had approached other government representatives, sinking their psychic hooks into the natives’ minds. The leader female smiled again. The native investigators would find nothing wrong, and when they returned to their leaders, they would not go alone.
It was the leader male who reproduced first.
Gladys Connor had always been a good hotel clerk. Since the strangers’ arrival, however, she’d found it harder and harder to concentrate. She kept making stupid mistakes, more and more of them, and on the fourth day, she ran her car off the road on the way and finished the trip on foot. It didn’t occur to her to call a cab or the garage. All that mattered was getting to the hotel, where maybe that handsome new roomer would talk to her.
He did more than talk. It was easy enough for him to persuade the now quite dim-witted and horny Gladys to take him back to her apartment; the only problem was that once he’d finished convincing her, she had trouble remembering how to get there. When they arrived, she didn’t even bother going into her bedroom before taking off her clothes.
The alien had spent the nights since his arrival stalking other human females, who were now occupying beds in the special ward. The ward had swollen to occupy most of the hospital, forcing other patients to double up, and was now under guard. After an initial period of inactivity, the victims showed a tendency to wander off unless restrained. Some were still unaccounted for. Now, he was ready. Removing the garments he had adopted as part of his human camouflage, he took the woman.
“Yes!” Gladys screamed as she reached the peak of her pleasure. “Yes! YES!” As the alien fed, her mind dwindled until that word was the only one she still remembered. Then even that was gone.
The alien’s shape shifted into something indescribable. An organ like nothing on Earth stabbed into Gladys as she thrashed in mindless pleasure. Then the alien withdrew and resumed its human appearance.
The creature inspected Gladys carefully. Yes, the changes were beginning.
He lifted her easily and carried her to her bed, guided by her memories. She would remain there until her transformation was complete. As her progenitor, he was instinctively driven now to protect her and provide her with food. Once the genetic material he’d infused into her had done its work and she was one of them, he would guide her by way of the communal link until she had taken her first prey. After that, she would be on her own.
Eight days after Peter Davis and his friends had gone into the woods in search of meteorite fragments, the government investigators who had come to Carverville, Pennsylvania, returned to Washington and the CDC’s Atlanta headquarters. They reported that nothing alarming had been found. The Homeland Security contingent suggested that the reports they’d been sent to investigate were the product of terrorist efforts at psychological warfare.
The investigators sent to the other towns from which disturbing calls had come offered similar conclusions. The federal government was reassured. After the anthrax scares and the SARS fiasco, it felt good to be able to discount the newest frightening rumors of disease before there was a general uproar.
The government was even right, in a way. It was not disease humanity faced, but infestation—pestilence, not plague. Unfortunately, that was realized too late. . . .