Spore by Tamara Jones

walls and worn Berber carpet with an orange stain—likely Kool-Aid or juice—just inside the doorway. A battered dresser leaned against one wall, its drawer fronts decorated with Transformers stickers shooting monsters scribbled in marker. The closet doors were gone but the track remained, and a cracked plastic shade covered the lone window.
    Mare had given her a tour of the house. Other than the GhoulBane artwork, everything looked second hand or, at best, bought on sale at a discount store years ago. They can’t afford to let me stay here long, she thought, resting her head on her knees again. I’ll cost them more food, more electricity, more water, more everything. I don’t want to be a burden to anyone. I just want my life back. But I can’t, because Jeff—
    The back door opened and she sat straight, breath caught in her throat. What’d they find? Oh, God, do I really want to know?
    Mare and Sean came in the back door and talked in the kitchen, their voices sounding excited as they moved toward the living room, then the hall. Mindy stood, listening, her stomach tying itself into knots as they went into Sean’s studio, the room next to her.
    “Did it get too wet?” Mare asked. “I tried to keep it dry, but the rain…”
    “I don’t know yet,” Sean said. “Where’s the USB cable?”
    “Top left… Here, I’ll get it,” Mare said.
    Mindy stepped into the hall and braved a glance into the studio. Sean sat at a black and silver Mac, toweling his face and dripping wet hair while his feet tapped with hurried frustration. Mare, also drenched, rifled through a desk drawer. Sean saw Mindy and smiled. “C’mon in,” he said, waving her into the room. “We took some pics.”
    “Found it!” Mare proudly displayed a white cable and plugged it in. She snapped the other end into the camera and stepped aside to dry herself as Sean clicked the mouse again.
    “Why such a rush?” Mindy asked. “Surely it’ll wait until you’re dry.”
    “Maybe not,” Sean said, flicking something on the camera. “I got caught by a deputy. He knows me and saw the camera. Gotta get the pics off it and onto a disk before he gets here.”
    “Oh.” Mindy stood by Mare, pressing her forearms against her stomach to quiet the terrified glurgle. Is it because of the photos, or because I might get in trouble for leaving the hospital?
    “Aw, shit,” Sean muttered as the status bar filled and disappeared. “They’re loading too quick. Looks like I forgot to put the camera on hi-res.”
    “Dammit,” Mare muttered, scrunching her hair in the towel. “Hopefully they’ll be okay.”
    “Should be,” Sean said, leaning forward as shiny veins on a grave filled the screen. “960 by 1280. Not great, but it’ll do,” he said. “It’s not like we’ll be printing them.”
    “What are the veins?” Mindy asked.
    “Not sure. Some kind of mold, judging by the smell,” Sean said, moving on to the next picture, a close-up of the slime. Again, Sean’s few clicks brightened and enhanced the photograph. Mindy could see raindrops beading on the translucent surface. “Is that what I came from?” she asked, grimacing.
    “No,” Sean said, clicking a few times as another puddle flickered on the screen then disappeared again. “I’m pretty sure you came from one of these.”
    The new picture showed a puffy ball in a creek, partially hidden beneath a fallen branch and spewing countless fragile tendrils of slime and foam.
    Mindy thought it looked like a slimy version of the fizzy tablets people dissolve in water for cold medicine or denture cleaning. “That’s it, isn’t it? The thing that made me.”
    “I helped another woman come out of one,” he said. “She was slimy, like you were when you first came here. All the goop just floats away.”
    Mindy’s hands clenched against her belly as someone knocked on the door. The sheriff!
    “Shit, shit, shit,” Mare muttered, tossing her towel in the corner before hurrying from the