The Conduit

Chapter 5
Changes

Chapter Description: things are about to be taken to a whole new level of weird

Chapter 5

...

Alexis’s mind slowly faded into clarity again as the heavy blanket of sleep was pulled off of her. With her eyes closed, she prayed that this whole experience was all a terrible nightmare or at the very least that she was still in the backseat of her car. Her body was bouncing back and forth lightly. She could be in the car. But she was in a sitting position. She could tell this just by the way gravity pulled at her. Slowly, she opened an eye.

The car bounced along the road again. Alexis sat firmly strapped into the carseat as they traveled on to who knows where.

“...all planned out! You know I have a crush on Josh Baker! You probably want to--”

“Katie SHUT UP! Have you even looked at her in the past ten seconds? Look at her!”

Summer’s and Katie’s voices rang out loudly in Alexis’s ears. She was back, finally. Just like that.

Katie looked back at Alexis, still wet-diapered in the backseat of the car. “What the hell are you doing?!” she asked wildly.

“Idunnmpfh,” mumbled Alexis. She was sucking her thumb. Disgusted, she pulled it from her mouth and asked, “What the hell is going on?! How long have I been... you know... ?out’?”

Summer was still driving the car, they were all still dressed as babies. Alexis turned around and could still see the college shrinking into the distance. Summer’s voice cracked with concern and confusion as she said loudly, “Like, five seconds!”

Five seconds? But she had done so much as a baby this time.

“But... that can’t be! She picked me up! She changed my diaper! I went to sleep and woke up again in her car! I must have been like that for hours!”

Summer began to cry and her voice started to waver. “Alexis,” she said quietly, “Please... if this is some kind of sick joke, please... PLEASE stop. You’re starting to scare me.”

“I’m NOT JOKING! IT HAPPENED! IT WAS REALLY HAPPENING! I’m strapped into that lady’s carseat! I’m... I’m a... I think I’m a baby!”

Tears started to roll silently down Summer’s cheeks now.

“It’s all because of this stupid--”

Alexis paused. Her eyes grew wide with horror.

She hadn’t been sucking on it. Every time she changed over from one body to the other, it was because she was sucking the pacifier. But this last time, the most prolonged time, happened when she wasn’t sucking on it. It was there on the backseat next to her where she left it what felt like a million years ago.

Katie turned back around to Alexis. Her bratty face curled into a contemplative frown. She eyed the pacifier. “I thought you needed to be sucking on that thing for it to work.”

Alexis was too horrified by the object to respond immediately, and spent a few seconds looking at it before she could answer. “I don’t know...” she said solemnly, “I don’t know why.”

Katie snickered. “And how come the last time you were all blank and silent for five minutes, and this time you were only that way just long enough for you to start sucking your thumb? Huh??”

“I DON’T KNOW KATIE!” shot back Alexis with enough force to make Katie’s eyes widen momentarily. “I don’t know how this damn thing works. It’s not like I have a fucking rulebook.”

“So just get rid of the damn thing!” Katie said, reaching over her seat and pressing the button to make the window slide open.

Alexis didn’t need any further motivation. She heaved the pacifier from the car with all of her might, making it disappear into the bushes on the side of the highway. She sighed with satisfaction and turned back to Katie only to take one glance at her and jump back in fright.

Katie’s skin seemed shinier. Her eyes were almost glossy. “Katie? What happened to your face?”

“What are you talking about now?” Katie asked.

Alexis reached out her left hand to touch Katie’s cheek, but jumped back against the backseat when she saw what she was holding.

The Pacifier.

Even though she could distinctly see it flying out of the car and out of sight, there it was in her hand again. Katie saw this and her face when very white. She glanced at Summer, still looking at the road, and gave a small cry of surprise. Summer’s skin, too, was now looking hardened and glossy.

“What?! What’s the matter?!” Summer asked nervously, looking quickly at Katie and double-taking, which made the car swerve slightly. “What happened to your skin?!”

“Mine?!” Katie said. “What happened to yours?! AND HOW DID THAT THING GET BACK IN HERE?!” and Katie pointed at the pacifier like it was a cursed relic.

“I DON’T KNOW!” Alexis cried, tears starting to flow. She quickly slid open the window again and threw it out, watching it to make sure that it landed on the road. Once it was out of sight and gone, she rolled the window up again and looked at her left hand. It wasn’t there. “Thank God,” she sighed and stroked her forehead with her right hand in relief. She felt something hard and plastic bump against her head as she did so.

She let out a high-pitched scream as she saw the pacifier there in her hand again. Katie screamed as well, and Alexis’s yell was echoing loudly throughout the car as Alexis, Katie, and Summer looked at each other, Katie’s and Summer’s skin looking more shiny and smooth.

Something was also very wrong. Katie’s head looked larger. Her torso and neck looked slightly skinny compared to it. Summer’s blonde hair was now somehow down at her shoulders, fanning out like a bell. Her hair was rigid too and didn’t move or change its shape as she turned her head.

The three girls were terribly frightened now, and Summer’s panic prevented her from driving straight on the road.

Alexis managed to compose herself before the others who were yelling at each other wildly. Alexis spoke over the both of them. “Summer!” she screamed, “Get us to the Halloween store! That’s where Mary said she’d be tonight, remember? Get us there now! If she’s the one I keep seeing then maybe she can--”

”Ok, here we are baby!”

Alexis was gurgling with childish delight, which turned immediately into cries of terror as she realized that she had reverted back into the body of this baby, still strapped into the carseat...

...

To Be Continued