by Mark Morris
"They're cleverer than rats," I said. "And anyway, even rats have feelings."
"Don't tell me you feel sorry for them?" she said.
"I just don't like to hear things in pain," I said.
When we got back, me and Dad had a cup of tea in what was the 6th form common room and was now a chill-out room for whoever wanted to go in (there was a dartboard and a football table and stuff). I asked him whether I'd been a wimp and he said I was "empathic" and "sensitive," which was no bad thing.
"I wish they were friendly," I said. "I wish we could talk to them. Why do aliens always have to be evil?"
He laughed and said, "You talk as if you've met lots."
"I just mean on the telly and films they always seem to be evil," I said. "You know, Daleks and Cybermen and that big monster in `Alien' and that kind of stuff."
He looked thoughtful for a minute, then said, "I'm not sure that the aliens are actually EVIL, Abs. I'm sure THEY don't think of themselves as evil. They're probably just trying to survive like us."
"But this is OUR world," I said, "and they invaded it. Why can't they go and find their own world?"
"How do you know they're from outer space?" Dad asked.
"Well, they weren't here before, were they?" I said.
"Not that we know Of,,, said Dad, "but how do you know our scientists didn't create them in a laboratory somewhere? Maybe what we're dealing with is mankind's folly."
"But if you don't think they're evil,why do you kill them?" I asked. "I didn't say I didn't THINK they were evil," he said. "I just said I didn't know.And as to why we kill them..." He looked un-comfortable and then he said, "I suppose it comes down to increasing OUR chances of survival. The likelihood is we'll be overrun by these things eventually, but I think it's our duty to try and delay that as long as possible."
"So do you think we'll lose then, Dad?" I asked him. "Do you think they'll kill us in the end?"
He stroked my hair and said, "Let's not dwell on that for now, sweetheart. Let's live from day to day. Let's do what we can and see where it takes us."
About 6 o'clock this evening me, Dyl, Max and Portia were playing cards in the dormitory that Portia, Marcie and Victoria sleep in and I was telling them about my conversation with Dad. "I just wish we could talk to the aliens," I said. "Find out what they want."
Dyl looked at me with a weird expression on his face.
"What?" I said.
"There's something I'm not supposed to tell you," he said. Max chucked his cards down. We were all sitting in a circle on the floor. "So tell us, man," he said.
Dyl looked around, as if he was afraid we might be overheard. "Best if I show you," he said. "Come with me. But be really quiet."
"Cloak and dagger. What a laugh," said Portia. She was wellspoken and she sometimes said things that made her sound spookily grown-up.
Dyl led us downstairs thru the castle and out into the courtyard. It was dark and there was a ring of torches burning down there,like big firebrands propped in wooden stands. Mr. McGregor had made them and they made the courtyard look like a medieval film set-the sort of place you'd see in Robin Hood' or something. It was cold outside and spitting with rain, but despite that it was a clear night. You could see every star.As I looked up I realized I hadn't seen any blue lightning for about 10 days. I wondered again whether the aliens and their eggs had come in on the blue lightning, and whether it had stopped now because its job was done.
We saw a few people on the way down the stairs-Mr. McGregor talking to Adam in one room, and Libby walking past with Moira Poole. Adam winked at me, and both Libby and Mrs. P smiled, but none of them asked us what we were doing. They were used to us us-ing the castle as a playground, especially this time of the evening, an hour or so before dinner. All our jobs (f we had any) for the day had been done and the adults were either preparing the meal or chilling out with a glass of booze and talking about stuff.
Out in the courtyard, Dyl said, "Wait here. I'll be back in 2 min-utes."
"Where you going?" I asked him.
He sighed and said, "Don't ask me loads of questions Abs. You'll find out soon enough."
He went thru the archway that led to the head's office and the staff bedrooms and came back 2 minutes later looking pleased.
"Right," he said, "come on," and he led us across the courtyard to the base of one of the towers next to the big wooden front door. This was known as the Muniment Tower and in its wall was a thick wooden door, which, when I was at school, was always kept locked.
"Okay," Dyl said, looking around again, "this is where we have to be careful."
"Of who?" Max asked.
"Wel l... Mr. West, mainly," said Dyl.
"I'm not scared of him," said Max.
"Neither am I," said Dyl quickly. "It would just save a lot of hassle if we didn't see him, that's all."
He reached into his pocket and took out a big, old-looking key, which he put into the lock of the door and turned. He pushed the door open and had a quick look around the courtyard again, and said, "Come on, quickly, everyone inside."
We squeezed through the door, Portia giggling and Dyl shushing her. "Don't go too far forward," Dyl said. "There are some stone steps in front of you, which you'll fall down if you're not careful."
He pulled the door shut and suddenly we were in total darkness. Portia giggled again and said, "Are we going ghost hunting? When we were at school everyone used to say this tower was haunted. They said a woman committed suicide by throwing herself off the top and now she drags her mangled body up and down the stairs."
Even tho I'd seen worse things than ghosts over the past few weeks, I felt a bit nervous and wanted to tell Portia to shut up. I was trying to think of a way to do it that would make it sound like I was bored when Max said, "Anyone got a-"
Then Dyl switched on a torch.
"Never mind," Max said, and we all laughed.
Dyl shone the torch around, but there wasn't much to see. We were in a circular stone chamber. It was chilly and damp. Just as Dyl had said, about 10 steps in front of us was a sort of rounded alcove, and there were stone steps in there, going up and down.
Dyl shone his torch into the alcove and the beam slid around on the stone steps. On either side of the beam black shadows leaped up and down the stairwell.
"Cool," said Portia. "Which way are we going?"
"Down," said Dyl.
"What's down there?" asked Max.
"Oh, don't tell us," said Portia. "I bet there's a really cool leisure complex, with a swimming pool and a pizza place and a cinema and a Starbucks." Her voice became dreamy. "God, I would pay, like, a million pounds to have a caramel macchiato right now."
"Then again it could just be a torture chamber," said Max.
"Close," said Dyl. "It's dungeons."
"Ooh, dungeons," said Portia in a bored voice.
"Yeah, but it's what's IN the dungeons that we're interested in," said Dyl.
"Which is?" I asked.
"You'll see," he said.
He took us down the steps, shining his torch. It was a curved staircase, quite narrow, and the steps were uneven and slippery. There was a smell of wetness and something like rotten vegetables that came up to meet us. It wasn't as bad as the smell of bodies we'd had to put up with for the first f ew weeks after the flood, but it was gross all the same.
When we got to the bottom there was a wall to our left and a nar-row stone corridor to our right. There was light at the end of the corridor-candlelight, which was throwing shapes and shadows on the wall. You could tell from the block of light there was a room at the end of the corridor, or at least that the space opened out.
Apart from us lot shuffling around, there was no sound but the drip of water. The walls were wet and slimy, and I wondered whether they'd been that way before the flood, or whether it was because seawater had soaked down through the grass and soil. The corridor that led to the candlelight at the far end was so narrow that we had to go down it in single file. Dyl
went first, shining the torch ahead, so that the beam mixed with the candlelight and made it doubly bright. Af-ter Dyl went Portia, then me, then Max. Max kept touching my shoulder and giving it a little stroke in a kind of 'It's okay, I'll look after you' way, which was typical of him-sweet, but trying to keep it quiet, to act tough and not embarrass himself.
Altho the room at the end was a bigger space, it wasn't THAT much wider than the corridor. The ceiling was low and made of rock and covered in slimy green moss. There were 4 cells on each side of the room, 8 altogether. The cells were just black holes cut into the rock with thick metal bars across the front. The bars looked old and rusty, but also solid, as if they'd never come loose, no matter how much you pushed and pulled and shook them. The floor was wet stone, covered in puddles, and inside the cells it was just as wet, which meant you wouldn't be able to sit or lie down without getting cold, wet and filthy. There were 2 candles in holders on the floor next to the far wall, sending shapes dancing up the walls. Without the candles it would have been pitch-black, not to mention freezing and silent except for the drip of water. I tried to imagine what it would be like down here in one of these cells with no light, and just the thought of it made me panicky and tight-chested. Dyl walked to the cell at the far end on the left-hand side and shone his torch into it.
We all crowded round to look. Inside the cell was a young man. He might have been good-looking once, but now his face was like a skull-white with dark hollows around his eyes. His hair was long and plastered to his head as if it was wet, and he had a stubbly beard. He was wearing jeans and trainers and a gray hoodie, and he was squatting on his heels, with his back against a shelf of rock that came out of the wall and was probably meant to be a table or a bed, or maybe both. There was a blanket in yellow and brown tartan draped over his shoulders.
"Who is he?" Portia whispered.
I looked at Dyl and I could see that his jaw was tight, as if he was angry or disgusted.
"It looks like Cal MacDonell," I said. "He was Dyl's best friend. Except it's not him, is it, Dyl?"
Dyl shook his head.
Behind me I heard Max breathe out hard. "It's one of them, isn't it?" he said. "An alien."
"A slug," Dyl said, loud enough so that the thing that looked like Callum would hear.
It didn't react, tho. Didn't look up at us or even flinch from the light when Dyl shone his torch into its face.
"What's it doing here?" Max whispered, as if he didn't want it to hear him.
"We caught it," said Dyl.
"How?" I asked.
"We went into Castle Morton on a scavenger raid," said Dyl, "to see what we could find. We hadn't seen much slug activity at this point, so we were a bit cocky. We split up, all going into different shops on the High Street. Me and Andy went into Price-Cutter's-you re-member,Abs, the supermarket?"
I nodded.
"We were loading up our rucksacks with stuff when we heard shouting," Dyl said. "We ran out and there in the street was Pete Atwell, and this big bearded bloke was holding him from behind, twisting his arms behind his back. Pete was yelling, and at first I thought the bloke was the shop owner and that he thought Pete was a looter or something-stupid, I know. I was about to explain who we were, maybe even invite the guy back to the castle, when he changed. First he went all... b luey white, like a negative photo. Then he sort of... shimmered or dissolved or something and became a different shape. It's hard to describe."
Me and Max both nodded. "We know what you mean," I said. "We've seen it."
Dyl said, "And there was this fizzing sound. And then Pete started to scream."
He stopped for a minute, looking at the Cal thing in the cell as if he really hated it.
"Then it ate him," he said. `Just sort of sucked him in, like he was... a piece of spaghetti or something. Pete folded in half and we heard his bones breaking. We knew we couldn't do anything for him, so we ran down the street to warn the others, just in case there were more slugs around. I went towards the chemist's, which was where Cal had gone, and Andy went down to Jackson's Hardware-you know, Abs, next to the stationer's, across the road from the Market Hall?
"I was s***-scared, going into that shop. The place was a wreck, and it was knee-deep in mud and all the things you get in chemist's shops-packets and boxes and bottles, full of pills and tablets and cough sweets and stuff. I couldn't see Cal anywhere. And I kept thinking something was going to come out of the mud and grab me, or was maybe going to grab my ankles and pull me under.And it was to-tally silent, and all I could hear was my own breathing, and my own heart, going like f***ing crazy... sorry Portia." "What for?" Portia asked.
"Swearing," he said.
Portia rolled her eyes and said, "Not a f***ing problem, squire."
Dyl gave her a quick grin and carried on, "So I was in the shop and I'd just decided that Cal definitely wasn't in there when I saw that, behind the counter, at the back of the bit where they sort out the prescriptions and stuff, there was an open door. I could see daylight thru the door and realized it must lead into a backyard. I was going to shout Cal's name, but something stopped me-I suppose I didn't want that thing that had eaten Pete to hear me. So I walked forward, wading thru all the... crap and stuff, and I got to the door and looked round it."
He paused again and gave the Cal thing another hateful glance.
"Cal was there, all right," he said, "but that thing was eating him. Sucking him in, just like that other one had sucked in Pete. There was no screaming this time. I could see Cal was already dead. Could see from the blood... an d... all that kind of stuff.
"Luckily the thing didn't see me. I managed not to shout or scream or anything. I pulled my head back through the door and got out of that shop as quick as I could. Out in the street I saw Andy running towards me, looking scared, and I asked him whether he'd seen Gregory. He said no, but he'd found his rucksack on the floor with stuff spilling out of it. Also he said there were 3 more of those things up there. I told him about Cal and said that we should get back to the castle. I said that if Gregory was okay, that's where he'd make for. Andy agreed and we started back, looking all around for slugs. Then we heard a shout behind us- Hey, guys, wait for me.' And I knew that voice straightaway, and... Jesus, it scared the s**t out of me. I turned round and there was"-he jerked his torch at the alien in the cell - "that thing, looking like Cal, walking towards us."
"And did you know it was an alien?" Max asked.
"Oh, yeah," said Dyl.
"So what did you do?" I asked. "If it had been me I'd have run like hell."
Dyl grinned again-or showed his teeth, at least. You couldn't say he looked as tho he was finding this funny. "That was my first thought," he said, "but then I remembered what we'd been talking about the night before-a bit like what you and Dad were talking about earlier,Abs. Old Westy had been saying how much he'd love to know what made these things tick, what their physical makeup was, all that stuff. And Andy's dad said jokingly, `We'll have to pop out and catch you one then.' Except Westy took it seriously, and he started wondering HOW we could catch one. And someone-Pete, I think-said it might be best to try when they were in human form cos that was when they seemed at their weakest, just as weak as real people, in fact.
"We didn't think we'd ever really get into a situation where we'd be able to catch a slug, but when this one turned up pretending to be Cal, I suddenly realized that, first, it was doing it to get into the cas-tle, and second, it didn't know that we knew it was a slug.
"So when it started running up to us, I gave Andy a sort of go along with me' look, and luckily Andy seemed to understand straightaway and he gave a little nod. So the slug came up and I went, `All right, Cal?' and he went, `All right.' And I asked him whether he'd seen any slugs and he said, `I saw them, but they didn't see me.' I told him Pete and maybe Gregory were dead and he said he'd heard the screaming and how awful it was and all that. And then I asked him where his rucksack was, cos he wasn't carrying it, and he said he'd chucked it cos it was weigh
ing him down and he was scared, and then we started walking back up the hill to the castle."
Dyl had been talking nonstop for a few minutes and his cheeks were burning bright red. He looked at the alien again, and grinned again, and I was suddenly shocked by how nasty that grin was, and it made me realize, probably for the first time, how much everything that had happened had changed him too, how hardened he'd become, and that made me feel sad.
"Do you want to tell them what happened next, slug boy?" Dyl said to the Cal thing in the cell. "Do you want to tell them how dumb you were? How easily we got you?"
The Cal thing just stared straight ahead and didn't say anything. I didn't like the way Dyl was glaring at it, his face full of hate. I touched his arm and said, "Why don't YOU tell us, Dyl? He's not going to say anything."
For a moment Dyl looked at me, and the expression on his face didn't change. "IT'S an it, not a HE," he said.
I didn't know what to say to that, but luckily Max must have
known how I was feeling, cos he said quietly, almost like he was talk-ing to a wild animal, "Come on, Dyl, tell us the rest, man."
Dyl looked from me to Max, and suddenly it was as if he realized who he was talking to and a bit of the meanness went out of his eyes. "Yeah, sorry," he said. "We were walking up the hill road to the castle, and there were branches and bits of trees and stuff all over the place, and I picked up this big branch, about the size of a baseball bat, and I started swinging it, hitting bushes and things at the side of the road as we were talking-you know how you do sometimes?"