I think that the 1950s and 1960s would not be entirely impressed with the monsters of the 1970s and 1980s.
Could’ve been worse: at least nobody died. People usually don’t from Runners, if you can get ‘em to the doc in time and get ‘em the antidote for the eggs. What? Oh, yeah, Runners stick eggs in you. If they hatch… kablooey. That’s why the Site usually gets sent the eggs already pickled in brine, when we get ‘em alive at all. Me, I’d just have people take a flamethrower to the filthy things, but everybody just loves to send us all their worst stuff. Makes it our problem, not theirs — and they got the paperwork to prove it. You get used to it.
Anyway, including Jack we had four people in the infirmary, which was a real busy night for our section. Oh, and one of them was Morton. He was looking even more like a mole than usual. Not like a Russian spy, like a real mole: short, fat, big schnoz. He was so out of it from the painkillers, he didn’t even wake up when me and the doc had to deal with a Runner that hadn’t quite died when we yanked it off another victim. Those little bugs can move.
“What the hell, Slugger?” the doctor asked me, when the last Runner was off and spiked. He had prescribed me, him, and the nurse a nerve relaxant; he had just enough ice for the three of us. “You guys decided to celebrate Easter early?”