I felt myself lifted up off the floor. A white cloth was wrapped around my head. One of the lab coats from an injured Controller, I guessed. I was cradled in the huge arms of a gorilla.
"Rock-a-bye baby," Marco joked. "Hang in there, man. We're getting you out of here." 55 I was still coughing and gasping, but my breathing was at least improving. Not enough to speak, but I could breathe enough to keep from passing out.
At the same time, something had happened to the pain in my head. It was diminishing. And yet, instead of feeling more clearheaded, I felt more confused.
"Get them!" a Controller was yelling outside the door. "Attack. Attack!"
"It doesn't look like I'm gonna fit through this doorway." It was Rachel. "So I guess I'll have to make the door a little bigger."
I caught just a glimpse through the fabric that hid my face. A flash of something huge and gray.
Rachel's elephant morph.
"Rachel?" a voice in my head wondered. The voice was surprised. "A human?" BOOOM! WHUMP! CRRRUUUUNNCH!
"Now the door is plenty big," Rachel said.
Wild screams! Panic! Cries of pain!
I was bounced and slammed against walls and even dropped at one point. I felt us go down a set of stairs. I felt hands grabbing at me and slipping away.
Finally, fresh air. We were running like mad for the shelter of a stand of trees that fronted the hospital.
"Cassie!" Marco said. "You have a horse morph, right? Quick. Before they figure out how to follow us."
I was tossed onto the dirt.
The gorilla peeled back the coat that was over my face. "You alive? Man! That was intense.
That is one hospital that's going to need some redecorating. We're gonna put you on Cassie. Then we'll try to cover your retreat."
"My . . . head ..." I said.
"Headache? No surprise, dude."
"Something . . . wrong ... I can't. . . think."
"Don't worry. Take a break. We have it under control. More or less."
"Unbelievable," said a voice in my head. "Can it be? Humans?" 56 What was that voice? Where was it coming from?
Marco lifted me and slung me over a horse's back. Cassie.
"Cassie? A human, yes. And Rachel? The cousin? Human as well." My hand tried to pull the coat away from my face.
What was happening? There was a voice in side my head.
We were running now, running and running at full gallop, through trees, across lawns, down suburban streets where Cassie's hooves clattered loudly.
We jumped a fence. I flew through the air and landed hard on the dirt.
I felt pain, but it came from far away.
The coat was loose. I looked around. Trees, everywhere. A panting horse standing nearby.
I saw all this, but in a distant way, as if I were watching it all on TV. My eyes moved left, right.
They moved all on their own. Like someone else was focusing them.
Cassie. I tried to say her name. Cassie.
But no sound came from my mouth.
"Don't struggle, Jake, a voice in my head said. It's pointless." What? Who was saying that? What was . . . ?
Then, a laugh only I could hear. "Put that primitive human brain to work, Jake. Jake, the Animorph," it sneered. "Jake, the servant of the Andalite filth!" Then I knew.
I knew what the voice was.
A Yeerk!
A Yeerk in my own head.
I was a Controller.
57 Chapter 15
Very good. You figured it out," said the silent voice in my head, mocking me.
"NO! NO! NO!"
"Jake, are you all right?" Cassie asked. For a moment I thought she had heard me cry out. But no, she was just concerned.
Tobias landed on a branch overhead. "Is he okay?"
"I can't tell. He's alive. He's breathing. But it's like he's zoned out or something. We may have to take him to a doctor."
I wanted to tell them both. To scream "They have me! They are inside me!" But I couldn't make my mouth move. It was like there was a roadblock. Like I could form the thoughts, give the order to my lips and tongue to speak, but the order never got there.
"Struggle all you like, human. Fight me!" the Yeerk gloated. "Go ahead. It won't matter, in the end. I am in your head. I am wrapped around your brain like a living blanket."
"NO!"
"I can read your thoughts. I control your body. I am tapped into your memory. I can read it like a book."
"Get out of my head! No! No!"
"Oh, I don't think I want to do that, Jake. Why would I abandon such an interesting host? So you are the one who has driven Visser Three half-mad with rage. A kid. The midget."
"Midget? How do - "
"You're surprised I know what Tom calls you? Ha ha ha. Oh, the irony really is sweet. Don't you get it, clever Jake? Don't you see what's happened, my little Animorph." Cassie had become human again. She knelt down beside me and looked down into my eyes.
"He's alert. His eyes are tracking. Jake? Jake, can you talk to me?"
It was a nightmare. That's what it was. Another nightmare. I would wake up soon. I would wake up and laugh and laugh.
"I am Temrash one-one-four," the Yeerk said proudly. "Formerly Temrash two-five-two, of the Sulp Niar pool. I have been promoted. No doubt you are happy for me."
"You filthy slug! Get out of my head!"
"Do you know what my last host was? Who it was?" the Yeerk taunted.
58 "Shut up! Shut up! Stop talking to me! Go away." It wasn't real. It couldn't be real!
"It was Tom, of course. Your brother. I am the Yeerk who controlled your brother." That cut through my growing hysteria. "What?"
"Ah, I thought that might interest you. Yes, Tom was my host."
"Then . . . he's . . ."
"Free? Ha ha ha." The Yeerk laughed in my head. "You're even stupider than your brother. No, your brother's body has been given to a new Yeerk. Someone with a lower rank. I am too important now to be wasted on Tom. I am to take on a new and important project. A very special host."
"The governor!"
"Jake," Tobias tried thought-speaking to me. "lf you can hear me, move your hand."
"Well, well. Not a complete idiot, are you?" the Yeerk said. "Yes. I was to be given the most important post on this planet. But this is better still. Visser Three is very determined to catch you and your friends. He will be surprised to learn that you are human."
"I'll never tell you who the - "
"The others? You mean, Cassie, Marco, Rachel? Tobias, who's sitting in the tree over our heads?
And of course the one remaining Andalite, Aximili Esgarrouth Isthill?"
"We have to get him to a doctor," Cassie told Tobias.
Just then, Marco arrived. He was fully human again. He was dressed in his morph clothes and walking gingerly without shoes. "Doctor? He needs a doctor? What's the matter with him?"
"Nothing is the matter with me," I said, quite suddenly. "I'm fine."
Only I didn't say it. My mouth spoke the words. But I didn't say it.
The Yeerk had spoken through my mouth.
"No way," Cassie said. "We're taking you to a doctor. You didn't answer me for like five min utes. Maybe you have a concussion."
My body sat up. "Sorry I scared you, Cassie. But I'm fine. And where are you going to take me?
Back to that hospital? What if some doctor does a blood test and he sees something that shows him I'm an Animorph?"