HIVE

by Taylor, Dan

  "I can confirm that in the stomach there is no meat what so ever and Mr Fisher did not pass on his virus through biting and consuming another victim’s flesh" Dr Leitner said relieved. The audience all simultaneously blew a sigh of relief and some even managed to smile.

  "I see no reason to check the rest of the digestive organs as from the chyme, which means stomach contents, there is evidence of food. This means that Robert Fischer died whilst eating, what I assume was his lunch," he said this triumphantly and was now smiling too. There was just one final part of the autopsy to do then he could retire from these people and stop this appalling facade. It is also the part he was most eager to do. Removing the brain and finally putting an end to this outbreak.

  Chapter 11

  PC Abel Coleman had already done a long shift. He had worked from the early morning and it was now almost mid-afternoon. After ten years as a police officer he still had not gotten used to the crazy shift patterns. Sleep was virtually non-existent. He joked to himself that sleep was just a dream to him and then realised that is the kind of thing only someone sleep deprived would find funny. There was only ten minutes until he was supposed to finish when he got the call about the crazy man attacking people at the Royal Duchess Hotel. Acts of cannibalism too! In his ten years working on the force, the word cannibalism had never come over the radio. He was not the only police officer going. All of the Police who were on duty were making their way over. This was going to be something big for sure.

  Abel checked himself in the mirror. Yes, his eyes were bloodshot from his shift but he didn't look half bad. At least that's what he thought. His golden-brown hair was neatly parted to one side and his cheeks were only just starting to shadow. He has only gotten a haircut yesterday and was feeling fresh.

  The driveway up to the hotel was long and swooping. He was on his own which was unusual but he was late turning up to the party as most as most had been there for forty-five minutes. As he past the lake he saw up on the hill the unmistakable flashing blue lights of police cars. It looked like an ambulance was there too. His police car crunched to a halt on the gravel driveway. He quickly got out his car and looked around.

  It was pandemonium. There were dozens of police officers surrounding the building holding the wooden doors and windows shut, barricading the building from the outside using benches, plant pots, garden decorations and anything they could get their hands on. There were police not just from Bayhollow but from neighbouring stations too. People inside the building were trying to push their way out and he could hear the officers shouting to and at each other to keep the building secure and watch various windows and doors. There was an ambulance but no paramedics in sight. An officer was administrating first aid to another officer inside the back of the van. He saw his Sergeant, Sergeant Green, holding the revolving door that was the entrance shut and calling for others to grab plant pots to wedge it closed. Jumping straight into action PC Abel Coleman dragged a heavy concrete plant pot, complete with a green fern which was being used to mark the border of the car park and jammed it into position, effectively locking the revolving door and freeing Sergeant Green.

  "Boy am I glad to see you Abel," he wheezed in relief. He was fifty years old but the wrinkles on his face made him look sixty. Years of irregular shift patterns will do that to a face. He had a bushy white moustache that hung over his top lip and thick black hair that was grey on the sides with speckles of grey hair over the rest. His cheeks were puffed red and his eyes were wide, glassy and hollow. Abel could smell the salty tang of sweat that was running down his wrinkled and furrowed brow.

  "What's going on? I heard on the radio there was a mad man trying to eat people." As Abel replied a body crashed his head into a glass pane in the revolving door from the inside. It was a young man with dirty blond hair gelled to side in a very 1920's style that was trying to make a comeback. He had a smear of thick blood which ran from his mouth down and down his blue polo shirt. His round bulging eyes were wild and ravenous. They darted from Sergeant Green to Abel and then back to the Sergeant. He was snarling like a mad man and foaming as if he was rabid. His neck was taught like a canvas tent and greasy sweat were dripping into the folds.

  "Ohh crikey, I take it this is the culprit then." Abel concluded curtly. Although it seemed strange to him, they were locking him in the hotel. Why not just go in and arrest him, there was more than enough police here to restrain him?

  "No no no Abel," Sergeant Green replied, "It's a whole building of them. It must have been some sick cult who have arranged to meet here only to turn on the staff who were serving them. I've read about things like this. It's a satanic cult for sure. They start on the Internet, looking for equally minded sicko's, meet up and have a mass sacrifice to Lucifer." He turned towards the snarling face behind the doorway, "Isn't that right, you devil worshiping son of a whore." His brashness shocked Abel but he reasoned that this was an extreme situation, even for someone as experienced as the Serge.

  His hypothesis was unlikely, Abel thought to himself, but the evidence was staring at him in its blood drenched face. Maybe it was a cult, as he could see no other alternative at this time. He pulled out his small, black policeman’s note pad and made a quick note on the blue polo shirt the man was wearing. It looked similar to the uniform the staff wore at this hotel. He wrote the words 'Hotel is a part of the cult?' The sergeant stared at him bemused. It was typical Abel to be deep in thought and making notes on what is happening all while chaos surrounds him. He was the most diligent note taker he had ever met on the force. His reports were legendary.

  "Is there anyone inside the hotel who is alive and not a part of this cult?" questioned Abel who hadn’t taken his eyes from his notepad and was furiously scribbling.

  "Well maybe, we are not sure. We are just securing the building first. When we arrived, they were all over the place attacking whoever was in their way. We had to force them inside. It's been a while since I used my truncheon but I think I still got it." A small smirk temporarily crept in the right corner of his mouth. "Now they are inside we are securing them as best as possible. There are twenty of us, twenty-one including yourself. I have six officers searching the grounds and surrounding areas for anyone who we may have missed and a helicopter and more officers are on their way. Once we have the riot van and another ten officers we will go inside and make arrests. Hopefully they will get here before the mass suicide!" Sergeant Green replied with a wink.

  "Mass Suicide Sarge?" Able questioned again. This was all a bit too much for him to take in.

  "Yes Abel, that's how these things always end. The cult appeases their God by sacrificing the innocent and then they commit suicide so they can be with their Demon Overlord forever." He gave Abel a look that suggest this was common knowledge and something that should have been obvious to him. "Now look Abel I want you to meet up with the officers doing a perimeter sweep to get a situation update and then report back to me ASAP. We can't let any of them escape and create havoc in our town!"

  "Yes sir," Abel replied and turned to go back to his car. If he was going looking for these freaks then he was going to need his trusty truncheon. He reached under the passenger seat to grab it. With a flick of his wrist the truncheon snapped fully extended. He like the light weight and cool hardness in his hands. He had gotten out of a lot of sticky situation with this tool, and what a tool it was. Twenty-three inches long, and hard as steel. Designed to hurt and injure but not to kill. Whether there is a riot in London or removal of Gypsy encampments, this is the tool to use.

  Able took a quick look around to see where would be best to start his search. In the distance, he saw a man walking near the lake. He was just a wavy shadow from here with the lower half of his body covered with reeds. The figure was moving so leisurely that it was probably just one of the officers doing the perimeter check. He decided it was best to see him and get an update on the situation on the hotel grounds. There was something about the way the shadowy figure moved which sparked some instinct in P
C Abel Coleman's brain. It was an instinct that only police have after years of experience. He called it his 'nose for trouble' and once something triggered this sense in his brain, he was powerless to do anything other than follow his nose.

  Chapter 12

  Callum was feeling terrible. He could not look at his blood drenched hands. He was disgusted at himself. He was disgusted because the experiment had clearly backfired and left him terrible pain all over his skin. He was disgusted that his scientific brain had not foreseen these results, the test subjects had all experienced a form of rage, why had he convinced himself that a higher more concentrated dose would be different? He was disgusted because something inside of him had snapped, taken over and make him kill and consume a good portion of the American man and bite several others. Most of all he was disgusted at how much he enjoyed it and how the meat in his swollen belly felt good and warming. He glazed his fingers over his protruding tummy in satisfaction. He did not know where he was going or what to do next. This was something totally unplanned for. Things were starting to spire out of his control. His skin bubbled and burst like water just before boiling temperature. It was amazing how much fluid was being produced. He wondered aimlessly leaving a slug like trail as he went. The watery trail was clear in places with whitish, yellow, phlegm-like lumps that smelled slightly of white onion. Not that Callum could smell the fluid, His hard, Roman nose could only smell the copper bitter blood that had been left a scarlet goatee on his face.

  The pain and constant itchiness made it hard to focus. He hated not being focused and in control. He was in a field for sure. He could see green and brown and felt the gentle whips of taller plants against his trouser shins and thigh. The air around him was heavy and lingered of sweet cut grass and the astringent wet mud. As he staggered further and further, he felt a soothing coolness over his shins. He looked down to see he had walked into a lake. It was a warm day but the lake was icy cold. He waded until the water reached his belly button. Slowly he sank into the calm lake until the undisturbed waters covered his shoulders.

  The pain dulled and numbed and eventually vanished. He wiped his hands over his bare chest and the speckles of blood melted into the waters. He washed away any gunk that ejaculated from his porous boils and pulled off any dead loose skin. After he was satisfied, he had cleaned himself he stood up and revealed his now very scarred pink chest. His muscular frame had been warped and twisted. There was little hard craters and bumps all over ranging in size from a dice to an orange. Once when he was little, he put an Obi Wan Kenobi figure in a microwave after he had lost an epic lightsabre fight with a Darth Vader figure. The microwaves radiation had cooked the figure from the inside and melted and boiled the plastic. It came out and hot boiling mess but once cooled left poor Obi Wan with a disfigured hard body that looked like the surface of the moon. He thought himself not dissimilar to his poor Obi Wan figure but he was unable to cry. So much had happened in so little time. This was not the controlled test environment that he was used to. Things had gotten way out of hand. In the distance near the hotel there was flashing blue lights and the whirl of sirens. The police would be here soon and work out this was his doing. There would be a trial and an inquisition. He would have to answer for his crimes and nobody would understand. He only wanted to be cured of the Hailey-Hailey syndrome and be normal. No, that wasn't it. He wanted to be more than normal, he wanted to be exceptional. A step beyond the average human. A man who can heal and survive better than anyone else. In a way, he had. Although his skin was now blemished, his deeper genetic makeup was beautiful. He had survived a fall that would have killed the normal man and left him with only grazes which were quickly reducing. He was no longer that pitiful child being bullied on the playground for his name and condition. He was strong and powerful. He looked down at his scarred torso and felt it with his cold grey hands like a pregnant woman awaiting a kick. "Ley de la selva." he muttered to himself. Law of the jungle.

  Chapter 13

  Klutz was beginning to panic. In forty-five minutes, all he had managed to do was sit up and nobody had bothered to check if he was alright. In that time, he had heard banging, smashing, screaming, sirens and crying. What on earth was going on at the hotel. It was his responsibility to make sure the hotel was safe and was running smoothly. He had a duty of care to the staff and to the paying guests of the hotel. Of course, he was worried that he had lost all feeling in his body and that his legs seemed to be in a coma but something bigger than himself was going on. There was danger lurking and he knew it. He needed to help and then get out.

  A thought crossed his mind. What if this is a terrorist attack? It could be. He could hear the police were outside and people downstairs are screaming and shouting and breaking things. But why at the Royal Duchess? Hid mind searched for the bomb policy in the employee manual but he could only half remember. Surely this is the last place for a terrorist attack they are usually somewhere more public. It is more likely to be a robbery. Maybe even an armed robbery. He had read in the local paper of a gang who had robbed a motorway diner by crashing their car into the side of the building after it had closed for the night and stealing the safe. They apparently made off with twenty thousand pounds! It could be that same gang.

  Klutz was determined to move. He tensed and held his breath. His body was shaking and his face screwed up into a distorted gurn. Sweat started to form on his body when finally, his exertions had managed to bend his right leg at the knee. He let out a raspy gasp. It was only bent at about a very obtuse angle but it was a start. It took another twenty minutes for him to be able to roll around like a toddler. The sweating had stopped and his body was cold all over. Using his floppy arms, which felt as if he had fallen asleep on them, he managed to drag his listless body out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. He placed his hands onto the windowsill, which Mr Smith had jumped out of only hours ago, and pulled his face up to where he could just look outside.

  There was at least ten policemen and women outside the building. Whatever was going on was massive. Maybe it was a terrorist attack! The swirling blue lights from the police cars pulsated and radiated into Klutz's brain. That combined with the sunlight caused a massive pain that spread from one temple, across his forehead and to the next temple. Klutz reeled backwards and gingerly pulled himself forward again trying to ignore the pain. The police looked panicked and half beaten. He could see the old couple from room #203, Linda and Bill Carter, in the back of an ambulance with blankets around their shoulder. Bills was looking around confused and Linda was starring towards the lake in a stoic catatonic state.

  Klutz cried for help "I'm up here, there are others trapped too," but all he could manage to blurt out was series of groans and snarls. Again, he was rewarded for his efforts as his noise made one of the police officers hear him and look up. What happened next will haunt and confuse Klutz for the rest of his days. The young police officer dropped his jaw in disgust took a step back and shouted "Jesus Christ! there's another one and he's trying to get out the window!" They were a disciplined and well-trained police unit but this was a scenario they had not trained for. Their reaction on seeing Klutz was for them to pick up stones and rocks from the driveway and hurtled them towards the window. Klutz reacted by reeling back, but his hands were stuck to the windowsill. He had unknowingly put his hands straight through some large pieces of broken glass which were the remains of the smashed window pane. He felt no pain and only a small amount of blood oozed from his hands. He had no time to think about his wounds as a large rock hit him in the head. Again, he felt no pain but knew he was in trouble. The large pieces of glass made a clean slicing sound as he sluggishly raised his hands out. He fell backwards and sprawled across the room, crawling like an army soldier under a training net. His body was feeling stronger now despite the beating he had taken from the stones. This must be down to adrenaline and he hope that would spur his legs into action. He heard an officer, probably the one who had spotted him, claiming he had 'got the bastard.' A wave of g
enuine hurt fell over Klutz. He may not be able to feel any physical pain but he could still have his feelings hurt.

  The stones had stopped flying through the window as there was something to distract the police’s attentions outside. Klutz was not willing to look again and risk a pummelling of stones. If he had looked, he would have seen Mrs Linda Carter bite her husband's neck and jump as agile as any acrobat onto the nearby paramedic and bite them too. Still in shock Klutz dragged himself to the doorway and pulled himself into the corridor desperate to get out the room. In his bewilderment, he had forgotten there was possible a terrorist attack happening in the hotel. To him the hotel looked as normal; with the exception of screams and shouting coming from downstairs. From the hallway, he could see the fire escape exit, the main guest staircase down to the reception and rooms #201 to #207. The room next to the one he had just left, had had its top hinge ripped off and now swung at an odd angle. The number 3 form the #203 sign had come loose and now formed an 'E' shape. He had just seen Mr and Mrs Carter as so presumed they had gotten out safely. Things had gotten way beyond his control. He needed to get to a computer, print a room occupancy list, give it to the police and then call the General Manager and inform her of the situation.

  The bloodcurdling sound of a woman screaming from her bedroom downstairs took precedence over his other duties. Klutz peered through the banister to see a swam of guests banging and clawing at the door. The poor woman was trapped in her room. with these beasts desperate to get to her. There were five of them in total. They each had a sickly grey coloured skin and their clothes were dishevelled and some were torn in places. They grunted and snarled like feral animals overcome with monomania. The door rocked on its hinge and the crunch of splintered wood came with each bang. Klutz had never seen people act this way. It was terrifying to watch. With a rush of adrenaline and the help of the banister Klutz pulled himself up. The banister creaked loudly being old and not used to the strain. An internal debate quickly commenced between running for the fire escape and standing up to these monstrous people. Something inside Klutz told him he had to help this person. He knew he was possibly putting himself in danger but his conscience would not let him leave. He opened his mouth to shout at them to leave her alone, but only a wolf like howl that ended in a roar escaped his lips.