11th February (est.) – I have to observe one feeding. It’s the only way. By “observe”, I mean indirectly, obviously. Pretty sure direct observation would be suicidal. Plus I don’t have night-vision goggles. Firstly, I need to catch some bait.
She paused and considered how Josh the botanist would have approached such an experiment. Given his fastidious documentation of everything, she reasoned that he’d probably refer to the evidence routinely. Dan, for his part, had always been extremely methodical, and was good at sequential planning. She decided to channel both approaches and see if her logic stacked up.
I know that victims of the beast turn to Gen Water. I know from first-hand observations that victims have puncture marks which match the size of the beast’s tentacles. My hypothesis is that an enzyme or equivalent is administered via the tentacles, which then turns the victims to Gen Water. I believe the white chalk powder may be this enzyme. To test this hypothesis, I need to observe the decay process again – I need to lay bait. If the white beast’s carcass is anything to go by, I suspect there are more beasts in the forest. Assuming they discover the bait and puncture it at early nightfall, and I check the traps first thing each morning, there will be a maximum of twelve hours that elapse before the effects are observed.
I’ll need two baits, really, so I can use one as a control. The first bait will simply be left in the trap as I find it, unaltered; I expect it to turn to Gen Water within twenty-four hours. To the second bait, however, I’ll add white powder, and then study it for a few hours to see if it accelerates the decay process. If I’m right about the powder-enzyme hypothesis, the second bait should decay much faster than the first. If this powder is the thing that causes victims to decay to Gen Water, then maybe I can start figuring out ways to stop it from working – an antidote, I guess. It’s gotta be worth a shot.
The next day she crossed the river and set her first traps along the periphery of the forest, following the trees lining the road for about two miles.
The forest was unnervingly dark. In four months of occupying the farmhouse, this was the closest she’d come to it. Going in there alone had no appeal; it would be all too easy to become disoriented. As she skirted the edge, anxious to lay the traps as far from the house as was practical, a dripping sound caught her attention. She paused and looked up, holding out her palm to face the cloudy sky. No rain. Warily, she turned her attention to the trees. Somewhere, hidden in the depths of the forest, was the pitter-patter of invisible rainfall. This was more than the steady drips of ice melting from the branches – it sounded like a localized shower.
Lucy laid the first trap and continued walking, peering into the forest as she went. After a few hundred yards she knelt down to lay the next trap. A dry twig snapped somewhere in the forest, making her freeze rigid. “Relax, Luce, be cool,” she whispered under her breath, as she scanned her surroundings like a meerkat. The thought of an unknown number of beasts roaming the landscape wasn’t reassuring, but it wasn’t new either; it had formed most of her nightmares for the first month on the farm. “They’re nocturnal,” she reassured herself. “That’s the sound of the bait. It’s a good thing. Be cool.”
As she continued along the forest edge to lay the final trap, a glistening on the road caught her eye. She followed the trail of liquid from the tar to a dripping tree. She approached, cautiously, and took out her notepad.
Parts of the forest sound like rain. I haven’t entered to investigate, but I’ve found a tree on the periphery that is sweating. It’s covered in globules from the ground up to the canopy – they’re small transparent studs dotting the bark at frequent intervals. The other trees that I can see nearby are dry, so I guess this one is the furthest the dripping had spread. I can’t see anything dead in the branches – nothing that could be decaying to Gen Water – so I’m guessing some of the trees have become infected. Perhaps something they’re absorbing through their roots?
She put the diary away and turned her attention to the third trap. The first two, a pair of old-fashioned mouse traps from under the kitchen sink, had been easy enough to set. This last one was altogether more lethal. “Easy does it,” she soothed herself as she carefully laid out the ancient, rusting bear trap from the barn.
With immense care, she prized the trap open and set it. Standing as far back as possible, she prodded the central pressure platform with a stick. The trap leapt from the ground as the rusty iron teeth clamped shut, chomping the stick in two. “That’ll do it,” she said, in half a mind to lay it somewhere in the house should those bastards in the SUV come back.
***
The first day yielded no bait. The only difference was that the sweating tree by the bear trap had dried out overnight.
The river had continued to melt, however, destabilizing Lucy’s ladder bridge as the ice banks thinned and receded, taking with them the submerged wasp nests and the mysterious firefly creatures. Most of the algae had disappeared too; only small pockets remained, clinging to the underside of the remaining ice.
Lucy spent the day re-securing the bridge by tying together a series of wooden pallets from the barn, then pegging them to the ground on both riverbanks with fence posts. Together, the pallets formed a chain of stepping stones, stabilized by the ladder, which lay tied across the central three to keep the bridge in shape.
Today’s bait-checking was proving equally fruitless. Lucy’s heart sank as she found the third and final trap empty once again that morning.
As she retraced her route along the road, back towards the river, a tremendous crunching racket sounded to her left. Lucy leapt back from the forest edge just in time as a tree crashed to the ground, bursting out onto the frosty tar below. The tall oak tree continued to shake on its side until the last shockwaves dissipated.
“What the? Fuck this place!” Lucy exclaimed, looking around for someone to agree with her. She waited for her heart rate to settle before examining the fallen tree. Entwined among the uppermost branches were purple leaves, incongruous among the barren winter branches of the oak itself. Lucy examined the long trunk. A thick, twisting purple ivy clung to the sides of the tree, coiled tightly around both trunk and branches alike, spreading out across all directions. She squinted and stared into the dark forest at the base of the fallen tree. The ivy was as thick as the oak’s lower branches. Lucy took out her notepad; the base of the tree had been crushed in two.
When she returned the next day, the tree was all but gone, reduced to a trail of goop that trickled across the tar. Lucy stared incredulously at the spot where she’d nearly been flattened just twenty-four hours ago; not only was the tree liquefied, but the purple ivy had retreated substantially, too – it now only slightly protruded from the shadowy forest boundary.
As Lucy stopped and stared, she noticed a faint rustling. With extreme caution, she edged towards the ivy and knelt down. At glacial speed, the great coils were retreating before her eyes. Each miniscule root would move in turn like a millipede’s leg, sending a small wave across segments of coil. The faint rustling was disturbed by another crashing sound – this time more distant. The ivy must be making its way through the forest, she noted.
This time Lucy’s venture was not entirely in vain. She used the opportunity to lay a fourth trap, having discovered an additional mouse trap in the barn.
15th Feb (est.) – Hoping the extra trap increases my chances. Either that or I’ve just added a needless half-mile to my daily checking routine.
***
On the fourth day Lucy’s perseverance paid off; luck struck twice, with two baits being caught in one night. A dead hare lay in the bear trap, its body horribly mangled between the metal teeth, a fateful bloodied morsel of carrot just inches from its bulging eyes.
The ill-fated hare had been visited already. Lucy examined the gruesome fluffy mess and quickly spotted the crucial puncture marks she was looking for.
It was already well into its decay process; the body had torn in two as the lower half fell away from the top, pinn
ed as it was between those uncompromising iron fangs. Some sweating flesh remained in place, droplets slowly falling off to the ground. Lucy prodded a piece of the suspended skin with her glove. It stuck to her fingers like melting wax, just as Dan’s cheek had done. The semi-liquid flesh peeled away with her as she withdrew her glove, becoming translucent as it stretched until finally it broke off from the rest of the mangled body. The fragment began to liquefy further, trickling off the tips of Lucy’s glove and dripping onto the floor, where the small globules began to roll back towards the wet bear trap. She watched as they pooled beneath the dripping corpse of the hare.
From the tub she’d brought with her, Lucy gingerly removed a small amount of the white powder that she’d taken from the tentacles of the white beast carcass and scraped it onto the hare’s body. To the second punctured bit of bait quarter of a mile away – an unhappy-looking field vole caught in the recently added mousetrap – Lucy did nothing, leaving it untouched.
“Time to see if you’re on the money, Lucy Young,” she said to herself, as she sat down on the road, notepad in hand, and recorded the approximate time.
16th Feb (est.) – It’s roughly ten a.m., I think. I caught two things in one night! And they were both punctured, which confirms that there’s at least one living beast in the forest. I’ve put white powder on the bigger sample – a hare – and am observing the effect. If I’m right, the hare should be fully degraded to Gen Water by midday, I reckon, whereas the vole won’t reach the last stages of decay until nightfall.
Lucy swapped her pen for a pencil and began sketching the hare’s body. Three hours passed, during which time she ambled between the two successful traps and sketched the differences.
It’s gone midday and I think I have to accept I was wrong. The hare’s carcass isn’t any more decayed than the vole’s. She hesitated, as the revelation sank in. In fact, it may be actively slowing the rate of decay. Could it be that the chalky powder is what killed that white beast in the first place? Maybe it’s toxic to them, not us? I’m low on firewood, and hungry, so am stopping observations for today. If my new hypothesis is correct, I expect that when I return tomorrow, the hare’s carcass will still be here, and the vole will be gone! Her hand trembled with excitement as she wrote. If I can prove it, then I may have stumbled across these creatures’ weakness – something they’re biologically vulnerable to. I might have discovered a weapon against them.
SEVEN
Scorched Earth
___________________________________________________
She ran as fast as she could, desperately looking over her shoulder as she fled. The river was so close now – she had to make it. She threw herself onto the floating bridge, narrowly avoiding tipping as she scrambled across to the far side. Wrenching out the fence post, she cast the bridge off loose into the cold, rushing water. It writhed in the current like a pinned snake.
Her backpack swung from side to side as she scrambled up the riverbank. Leaping over the verge she traversed the frozen vegetable field, sprinting towards the house. Involuntary whines punctuated each gasp for breath as sweat mounted on her forehead.
Slamming the kitchen door shut, she locked it behind her, immediately grabbing key items from the table – a bottle of water, some oats, and the tub of white powder. She careered up to the bedroom and dropped them onto the bedframe; she had moments to pack. She didn’t know where she was going, or how she was going to escape, but the house wasn’t safe anymore. That day, for the first time, she had seen a beast, a living beast, moving around during daylight. She didn’t know if it had seen her, or heard her. She hadn’t stopped to think, she had just run.
Pressing her eyes to the window she looked out across the field for signs of the predator. She had been approaching the traps as usual that morning to check for bait when she had spotted it moving through the forest, its white fur rippling between the tall dark oak trunks as it weaved along the roadside trees. The creature found the trapped prey, first sniffing it, then puncturing it with three black tentacles that came out from its torso. All this in the few seconds before Lucy’s flight instinct took over.
She shoved the most important items she could find into her backpack, her heart racing as she tried to create a coherent plan out of nothing.
The sound of tires crunching over gravel interrupted her frenzy. Two car doors slammed in succession, followed by footsteps approaching the house.
“Hey lady!” came a voice. “Open the door. We know you’re in there!”
Laughter followed the gruff shout. It sounded like three or four men.
“Don’t be shy now, we only wanna say hello,” shouted another, prompting more laughter.
Lucy hastily swung the backpack over both shoulders. Clutching the handgun, she crept towards the door and skirted across the top landing, silently moving into the adjacent bedroom which overlooked the driveway.
With extreme caution she raised her eyes above the windowsill and peered down. The SUV sat squatly on the drive with four armed men standing before it. She recognized all but one of them. The two others who stood directly below her, out of sight, made their presence known by banging on the door with their rifles again.
“Try the back!” yelled the gruff voice from the doorway. Two of the four visible men peeled off – the Latino man with sunglasses and earring, and the lazy guard with camouflage trousers and a grey hoodie. Their crunching footsteps announced their progress down the side of the house. Lucy had only moments to decide on a plan of attack.
Ducking down again, she hastily crawled back to the master bedroom, from where she could see the rear entrance. Silently, she pulled the window open a couple of inches as the men crunched around the corner. Taking the gun from her back pocket, she timed the click of the barrel loading with their steps. She had them in shot. Heart pounding, she counted to three in her head as the Latino man tried the locked door by hand.
“Get the fuck back,” barked the man in the grey hoodie, preparing to swing his rifle butt into the glass of the door.
Lucy took her chance. She fired twice, both shots implanting themselves into his upper chest. He fell to the ground immediately as his Latino accomplice, startled by the gunfire, spun around wildly, spotting the open bedroom window only as Lucy’s third bullet struck him in the leg.
“Shit!” she cursed as the man screamed in agony, falling onto his back, clutching the wound with one hand as it gushed blood.
“Puta de mierda!” he roared, firing off a reel of bullets directly at the bedroom. Lucy hit the deck and scrambled backwards, trying to cover her ears as the gunfire shattered the windows, pockmarking the walls and ceiling.
“Coño!” yelled the man as his cartridge clicked empty. Lucy fled the room as he reloaded, trying to silence her four-at-a-time steps down the staircase, loosely aware of the sound of multiple rapid gravel steps skirting the house in the opposite direction.
The front door bulged in its hinges, threatening to buckle with each rifle-butt impact. Lucy froze at the foot of the stairs and crouched into a ball as the rifle thuds suddenly stopped, giving way to a momentary pause in which the commotion from the rear of the house carried through.
“Fuck this,” declared a muffled voice on the other side of the wall.
A thunderous spray of bullets rained through the front door. Lucy pushed her fingers into her ears and clamped her eyes shut as shards of wood and plaster flew through the air.
The firing stopped and Lucy seized her moment. As the gunman moved back towards the door his figure blotted out the bullet holes, revealing his exact position. She stuck the nozzle of her gun into a fresh bullet hole and fired four bullets upward in the direction of the man. His body crumpled to the floor and light streamed through the new perforations once again.
Lucy jumped up. Squinting through a bullet hole, she re-aimed at the man’s twitching body and pulled the trigger. A fateful “click” revealed her magazine was empty.
Just then the glass in the kitchen door smashed, i
mmediately followed by the sound of the lock being attacked from the inside. Grabbing the latch in front of her she burst out onto the front driveway as heavy footsteps and furious shouts echoed through the house. She leapt over the rasping, twitching body and ran down the front steps, but before she could get to the SUV a sixth man skidded around the corner, blocking her way.
“Stop!” yelled the heavily tattooed newcomer.
Turning on her heel, she sped away around the opposite side of the house. The open barn came into sight.
“You better fucking stop, bitch! The more you run, the more I’m gonna make you regret it!” he yelled.
Her whole body strove to reach the barn, every cell within her mobilizing to get her to safety. A bullet flew past her head as she ran, making her duck in delay; she was halfway there, but the tattooed man was catching up, hot on her footsteps across the open yard.
“Don’t shoot! I want that bitch alive!” yelled the leader, bursting out of the kitchen and clutching his cowboy hat as he ran. Lucy looked over her shoulder again as the leader leapt over the dead body of his hoodie-wearing comrade and dodged the injured Latino man, who was being attended to by another gang member.
“You hear me?” cried the leader. “We’re taking you alive, missy!”
The distance between their crunching paces and hers was shrinking rapidly; both men were stronger than her, better fed, and faster.
A rock hit her on the back of the head, knocking her off balance. She stumbled into the barn, her foot catching on the concrete lip of the floor.
Before she could get up, the full weight of a human body fell onto her back with force, knocking her flat onto the ground and winding her completely.
“Gotcha! Now stay the fuck still!” snarled the tattooed man who had leapt onto her. He grabbed her short hair and wrenched it back so hard that it pulled her entire head off the ground. Unable to scream, her winded body wheezed in pain and her eyes opened wide in shock.
Convulsive Box Set Page 27