by Ian Woodhead
So these things were their Gods? They looked like a cross between a lesser and a human but covered in thin leathery plates. The largest individual pushed through the middle of the hunters and stood in front of Tirok. It took a great deal of will not to fall to his knees and start begging for mercy like his companions.
The creature opened its huge mouth to display a set of teeth which belonged to a carnivore. “You are one unique individual, Tirok Nar,” it said. “Hunger has forced you to show yourself, as hunger often does.” It looked down at the small pile of long tusk meat lying at his feet. “Perhaps we can come to an understanding, an arrangement? If you surrender yourself to us, your companions can go free. We will even allow you to keep the meat that you stole from us.”
The captain’s eyes sprang open. He gasped out in shock and sat up, while he attempted to bring his mind back from the distant past.
Relax, man. You’re safe. The things never even bothered giving chase.
The girl, where is she?
Ran off into the woods. Not that I blame her. So, come on, tell me what happened next? Obviously you did take this hybrid up on his offer.
I had no other choice. I was the tribal leader. It was my duty to keep them safe.
So what happened to Cun and the other hunters?
Once they absorbed me, I killed them all. I then led a unit of foot-soldiers back to the caverns and slaughtered them as well.
Jesus. Man, you need to help anyone left to stop this madness. Do it for yourself, for your old tribe. Do it to save your soul!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The air around here did not smell right. Callum placed the shotgun beside him, fished out a filthy tissue from his side pocket, and cleaned out some black gunk that had collected around his nose. He took another tentative sniff. It still didn’t smell right.
Malc grabbed his shotgun and pushed it against his chest. “Don’t let go of this, you idiot. Remember what Harry said about all the stuff that’s out here.”
“I do know that, for crying out loud. Stop it with the mothering.” He kept hold of the shotgun anyway. “Does it smell weird to you?”
His colleague sighed heavily before scrambling further up the slope. When Malc reached the top, he laid on his front and gazed at the reason why they were here in the first place. Like he needed him to tell him how to react in this situation. Callum, unlike Malc, had served his duty for queen and country. He had taken note of everything Harry had said about what could be lurking out here but, no insult to their new friend, his information was out-of-date.
The way Callum saw it, this was the main assault force, tasked with snatching as many humans as they could. This was why they had to find as many people still alive as possible before the things that Harry had warned them about, like the traps, could be manufactured and deposited. If they couldn’t find some way through that fire curtain, then this section of the town could well end up being their permanent home. He shuddered to himself at the thought of having to pick their way through an organic minefield every day, while desperately seeking out anything edible.
He crawled up the slope and lay next to Malc, making sure the old man saw the weapon. “Anymore movement?”
Malc shook his head. “There was a shadow moving about, a couple of minutes ago, but that’s about it.” He turned his head to face Callum. “This doesn’t feel right at all. I say we leave them and go back.”
Rising eight storeys above the blackened earth stood the only tall building left in town. Palladium house, the only surviving building from a collection of eight tower blocks which once housed the majority of the town’s less affluent residents. Callum agreed with Malc. It made no sense as why only one should be left, virtually untouched while the mounds of rubble which was all that remained of the building’s companions lay around it. Just as it made no sense that anybody could still be living in that tower block, acting like nothing had happened out here. Yet, he couldn’t deny what he saw. Seven floors up, he saw a pair of drawn curtains and behind that thin red fabric, Callum could see shadows of at least two people inside. It even looked like the bloody TV was on!
“Drugs? Maybe even drink. If they were utterly wasted when all this happened then, as long as they don’t peer through the curtains, they won’t have a clue that anything is wrong.”
“Sorry, I’m not buying it. Even if what you say is right, it doesn’t explain why the two Goliaths left that tower block alone.” Malc reached into his pockets and brought out a pair of binoculars. He pressed the lenses to his eyes. “If there is something weird going on, I mean, even weirder than this, our three volunteers might be able to find us some answers.”
Harry had pleaded with Callum not to leave the safety of their makeshift sanctuary, telling him over and over that the risk was too great, that even if anyone was left in the town, their fate was sealed now, and we could do nothing for them.
Both Dosser and Malc shared this feeling; they too tried to make Callum see sense. He just looked across at the forty-three people they had managed to save from the jaws of the beasts out there. Before their arrival, this town boasted a population of over fifty thousand and Callum was sure that his daughter and ex-wife were still somewhere within that number.
He couldn’t explain his desire to keep looking. The others wouldn’t understand. The two old men would call him selfish, that he was throwing his life away for nothing. Probably continuing by saying nearly everyone that they’d saved had lost somebody too. That he ought to count his lucky blessings.
None of them stopped him from going. Harry only gave him a single sad nod before he extended his arm and telling him to be careful out there. Malc and three young men ran after him, a couple of minutes after he’d left them. Looking back to that moments, he couldn’t decide whether he was overjoyed at having somebody else to watch his back or guilty for thinking that perhaps Harry had been right after all and these four men were going to end up dead because of his selfish urges.
Malc passed him the binoculars. He saw them alright, picking their way through two overturned cars. On the journey here, while listening to two of the men, he found it amazing to discover that these guys used to work at the carpet mill, which was located right on the edge of his patch. In fact, it was highly likely that those individuals might have even tossed him the odd pound over the years. Callum kept this information to himself, believing that if it became common knowledge that the guys in charge were a bunch of filthy tramps, they might not be so receptive to any future commands.
The other guy owned a newsagents opposite the housing estate. He appeared to be smitten with the girl they found him with. Callum discovered she was the sister of the big lad who attacked Callum a couple of nights ago.
He groaned. Two nights, was that all it was? It felt like two years. Callum didn’t want to think where any of them could be in two years’ time, if they were even still alive. God, and to think that this time last week, Callum would have done anything to change his life.
“What’s wrong? Are they okay?”
“Yeah, they’ve gone around the block perimeter and have crouched behind a transit van. Everything looks okay.” He passed the binoculars back to Malc. “Come on, we had better join them.”
“Don’t forget the shotgun.”
He saw the glimmer of a smirk upon the old man’s face but kept quiet while waiting for Malc to hit him with the punchline.
“And make sure your scented candles are secured. We wouldn’t want any of them to explode and spray me with the stink of mulberry and fig.”
“Funny man,” he said while making his way down the other side of the grassy slope. “They’re infusers and they might well save your skin.”
“So you say.”
Callum reached the road and checked both directions as well as up before running across. He didn’t stop running until he reached the next piece of cover, a brick compound which held the wheelie bins belonging to one of the tower blocks. He waited for Malc to join him. “Yeah, so I say. Look. I
know how mental it sounds. but they did work. The stuff was like strong acid to them. You heard Gavin’s account of what happened.”
Malc ran over to the edge of the compound and peered around the corner. “Come on, Callum. It’s Gavin you’re talking about,” he said after he’d returned. “Gavin’s the biggest bullshit artist in town. He once tried to convince me and Dosser that he was the forgotten son of Charlton Heston.” He placed his rough, callused hand on Callum’s shoulder. “I’m not calling you a bullshit artist, guy. I’m just saying it’s a little hard to believe.”
Callum removed the old man’s hand. “We’d better join the others.” Malc nodded and set off towards where the others were hiding. He waited for a moment before following. The lingering memory of one of those infusers shattering over the thick armour of that huge monster and having no effect made a nasty reappearance. What if Malc was right and the infusers had nothing to do with those other creatures melting. They could have just stood in something on the floor for all he knew.
He slowed down and watched Malc join the other three men. The newsagent obviously had something to say by his animated actions. Callum unzipped his coat and pushed his hand into the inside pocket. He had three infusers in there, along with his lucky knife and a packet of mints he’d found earlier. No way could Malc be right. Those infusers had melted the creatures in that shop, there could be no doubt about it. He just didn’t know why they didn’t kill that huge armoured tank thing.
“Nice of you to join us,” said Malc. “Our new friend here, Raymond Custer, is also of the opinion that something around here doesn’t smell right.”
The man nodded. “It doesn’t, I know that smell too. It’s the same smell I caught back when they first invaded the shop.” He shivered violently. “Jesus, I don’t want to go through anything like that again.” Custer pointed at the open doors. “It’s coming from there. I think we should turn around and look somewhere else. This place gives me the creeps.”
“There’s another way in,” muttered one of the other men. “We noticed it on the other side of the tower block. Looks like something’s hit the wall with a canon or something.”
Both Malc and Custer shook their heads.
“Come on, Callum. How many different ways of wrong does it need to be before you listen to us?”
“You didn’t have to follow me, Custer,” said Callum. He made sure the shotgun was loaded before setting off towards the side of the tower block. He so wished Harry was here. “You stay here if you want, guys, but I’m going inside.”
He slowed down when he got to the corner, aware that the others were still behind him. So much for turning around. Callum didn’t blame them for wanting to turn back; he wanted to do the same when Custer said he’d recognised that smell.
What if it was a trap? Harry had told them about how he found that portal which took him to this world. Who’s to say that this isn’t like that?
“Oh fuck!” cried Malc. “Will you look at that?” He tapped Callum’s shoulder. “Look up, man!”
His gaze followed Malc’s pointed finger and spotted a blonde-haired teenage female leaning out of a window on the seventh floor.
“Bloody hell. There is somebody up there!” Malc took a couple of steps back. “She isn’t alone either.”
Custer joined him. “They must have been hiding in there all this time.”
Could it really be his daughter? The age would be about right. Even if it wasn’t, Callum couldn’t leave them up there! He ran past the two men only for Malc to grab him.
“Custer’s right. Look. There is somebody else.”
Callum skidded to a stop and looked up again. “Oh my Lord. It’s her! It’s Caroline!” There was no mistaking that face. “Hold on!’ he shouted. “I’m coming.”
He ran around the corner of the tower block, his heart and mind racing. The two men from the mill flanked Callum. He reached the hole in the wall and was about to climb inside when one of the men grabbed his left shoulder.
“Wait, I think I saw something.”
Callum pushed past him. “It’s nothing, probably a rat or something.” Nothing was going to stop him from reaching his daughter, including some mangy old rat.
He hurried through the middle of the living room, trying to avoid looking at the flat screen TV, black leather three-seater sofa, and all the other luxuries denied to him for all these years.
His family was here, right under his nose, and he didn’t have a single clue. Callum reached the door which led into the communal hallway. The layout of their apartment couldn’t be much different from this one, minus the huge hole in the wall, obviously. That concept of Harry’s parallel earths raised its ugly head again. So, somewhere, on another world, a version of himself was no doubt living in Palladium House with his beautiful wife and daughter, blissfully unaware of the plight of his alternate self. “You lucky, lucky bastard,” he whispered. Callum grabbed the handle, twisted it, and pulled.
Two foot-soldiers reacted to the door swinging inwards by firing two fleshmelta blasts into the apartment interior. Callum’s lightning reflexes saved him. He shouted out in a combination of alarm and horror while dropping to the floor.
He fired the shotgun. Either by luck or design, the blast hit them exactly in the middle, shredding their sides and shoulders. “You dirty, sneaky bastards!” he cried. Callum scrambled to his feet, stumbled over to the two creatures, not caring at all about the danger he was putting himself in. Not that they were able to react to his presence.
The foot-soldiers were in too much pain to notice him. He slammed the gun stock into one of the creature’s head, growling in satisfaction as the wood smashed through its skull. He pulled the gun up and wiped the thick grunge off the sides before turning to the remaining foot-soldier, but the other one had already died.
He leaned against the wall, panting heavily.
“You did this,” growled a voice from the side of where he was.
Callum turned back to the doorway and saw only three men. Custer and Malc were standing up, staring, white-faced at the mess of lumpy sludge spattered across the floor. The men, kneeling down, looked straight at Callum. “This is all your fucking fault. Why don’t you ever listen?” He turned his head back to the floor.
Callum saw that not all of the man had melted. His colleague held onto part of an arm. “We need to keep moving,” he said, gently.
“No, no way,” said Custer. He tapped the kneeling man on the shoulder. “Come on, Dave, let’s get out of here.”
“Wait,” shouted Malc. “We need to stick together.” He looked at Malc, shook his head then followed the other two. “Come back, at least wait for me!”
Callum walked back to the doorway and watched them reach the hole in the wall. The three men climbed back out of the hole then a couple of seconds later, climbed back inside. The four foot-soldiers running after them explained their abrupt change of mind. Callum spun around and raced back out of the apartment. He climbed up the first flight of steps and stopped beside the next door. He could clearly hear the other three shouting and running up the stairs almost as clearly as the sound of somebody or something sneaking around in the apartment next to him. He broke open the shotgun, fished out another shell, and placed it in the breach.
So it was a fucking trap. Those bastards had been waiting for them all along. The chances of all of them getting out of this alive had slipped down to practically zero. Callum brought the gun up to his shoulder and stepped sideways. He was going to make sure that he took as many of them with him. A single foot-soldier ran towards him. It was unharmed. He turned the gun around, ran into the room, and smacked the stock into the side of its head. It dropped like a stone.
The other three men joined him. Malc already had his gun ready. Another foot-soldier popped up from behind a brown sofa. Malc spun around and took it out. Callum spotted movement coming from the kitchen. Another one ran into the room and took cover behind its dead companion. Callum shouted and fired, blasting a huge hole in th
e middle of the sofa.
“Did I get it?” he shouted.
In answer to his demand, the foot-soldier stuck its head up from the top of the ruined sofa. It brought up a hand-gun version of the fleshmelta and fired. The blast travelled straight in between both Callum and Malc and hit Dave in the face. Custer screamed.
“Kill it, Malc, for crying out loud!”
“I can’t,” he replied. “The damn gun is jammed!”
Callum ran at the foot-soldier, took out one of the infusers, and smashed it into its face. The result was instantaneous. The creature emitted a pain-drenched scream and leaped backwards and fell into a glass cabinet. Its hands clawed deep grooves into its now sponge-like flesh. Callum searched through his pocket for another shell. He managed to place it into the breach and bring the gun up to his shoulder. Malc slammed the palm of his hand against the barrel.
“Don’t waste ammo on it,” he snarled. “Let the bastard die noisily. It might make the rest of them more cautious in coming after us.” He grabbed Callum’s arm and pulled him out of the apartment. “Come on, we still have to find those people up there. We can’t allow the deaths of our comrades to be in vain.”
Malc took the lead, followed by Custer. Callum couldn’t help but notice that the newsagent had dropped the airgun that Gavin had given him and scooped up the revolver which Dave had brought. Callum followed them up the next flight of stairs, listening to the dying screams coming from that foot-soldier. Malc had been right. The things that had followed them through the hole were nowhere in sight.
Unless…unless they didn’t need to follow them? Callum shook away the paranoia. He needed to keep his head clear. Thinking about what else might be up here waiting for them would end up screwing with his mind. He patted the inside pocket. At least he still knew the infusers worked. More importantly, the others knew it too. That had to be one good thing that had come out of this.
“Stop!” hissed Malc. “Oh no, oh fuck. What the hell are we going to do now?”