The Dinhog

Spores
The Dinhog spore is a pollen-grain-sized life form of neither plant or animal type cells - it is in a class of its own. Roughly 25% of its structure is one giant nucleus and the amount of genetic information in it is quite staggering.
This is due to the highly specialised nature of the organs it creates. It lies completely dormant, floating through the air, until it comes in contact with a living cell of any type.

Infection
Once the spre makes contact with another cell it 'reads' the genetic info of that cell and its actions thereon are based on the hosts physiology. The example below is that of any vertibrate.
For other types of life form, see notes later on. The spore, in this example, begins to divide, drawing on any energy it can find - kinetic due to blood flow, heat energy of the body, anything. It first grows into a long nerve like thread which burrows throught he body until it reaches the central nervous system of the host creature.
This is where it begins to form into the Dinhog Organ.

Dinhog Organ
This long twisted organ spirals around the backbone and takes around seven days to form for a man sized creature. It has many parts, the first is a series of brain-like tissue lobes which is thought to be where the Dinhog's consciousness is formed.
Threads spill out of this and link up to the hosts brain and nervous system.
The more this section grows, the more it can tap into the host's brain, eventually being able to control it. More about this later.

The second section is the growth organ. This is an incredibly complex energy conversion organ, similar to that found on the back of the aliens of Vigilante fame. Thousands of threads lead out of it and to key points in the hosts body and skin.
When this has fully devoloped, the body's cells can be made to divide and grow at an astonishing rate.

The next section is another brain-like area similar to lobes of the human brain associated with the memory. It acts as a 'store' of all genetic information the Dinhog absorbs - initially only the host's.
It can singal to the growth organ to manipulate the nucleus of the cells to change their genetic codes to one in its memory banks. Exactly how this is done is unknown, but the Dinhog is incredibly complex.
The last section is the regulator. It checks the host's body is not rejecting the organ, and if if so, begins to pacify any attacking white blood cells.

Host-Dinhog Relationship
As the Dinhog links up with the hosts brain, it alters parts of its own brain to attune with the host's brainwave patterns. This way it can communicate with the host on the subconscious level.
The Dinhog may or may not wish the host to know of its presence. An aware host can be controlled easier, but there is the risk that the host will actively seek out ways to destroy the Dinhog. Especially, strong willed hosts may even force the Dinhog to do as they bid, eventually the Dinhog becomes an extension of the hosts own body with no will of its own.
Under normal circumstances, however, just the opposite is true. When the host's brain is suffis.... ug! ... ah! Help Som BoDy PhonE an AmbULAnce.....

(on the original page, the writing slants on the last couple of lines and the last e has a long line going off the page.)

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I was clearly ripping off John Carpenter's The Thing, of which I was a big fan of. But also of the Monad from ABC Warriors. The Dinhog made it into several drawings and a short comic strip. It fell out of favour with me when I saw how often this monster gimmick was used; in things like Half-Life etc. - Duncan