“Are you sure you’re all right?”
He nodded. “I have to go now.”
He scurried away, disappearing around the corner before I could call him back. I stood there for a few moments, staring after him. What had he meant, it didn’t hurt so much when Shelley was asleep? Absently adding another packet of pills to my basket, better to be safe than sorry, I made my way to one of the two checkouts that was open and emptied my meagre load onto the conveyor belt, then stared down towards the exit. There was no sign of Mark.
The middle-aged man at the checkout smiled too brightly at me.
“Would you like any help packing your bags, sir?”
I almost laughed, looking at my few purchases on the counter. “No. I can manage.” I wasn’t sure where he was going to get this bag packer from. The store was operating with a skeleton crew, and the skeleton was missing a couple of limbs. The machine bleeped contentedly, oblivious to the changes in the world.
“That’ll be five pounds ninety. Do you have a club card?”
I shook my head and handed over a ten pound note. His precisely gelled hair shone. Maybe this was his way of coping. Or maybe whatever was going on in his house, or his mother’s house, or his sister’s house, had driven him round the bend.
“Have a nice day!”
My bag filled, I raised a halfhearted arm in response, already walking away. Back in the fresh air, I had nowhere else to go but home, but at least I had plenty to think about while I walked. What had Mark meant, it didn’t hurt so much when Shelley was asleep? I really hoped he’d ring me later, maybe go for a drink if we could find somewhere that was open. I needed to share this now, to talk it over with someone, just so I didn’t turn into the crazy Tesco man. As I slowly made my way back to Stony, my headache pounded back to life, ignoring the painkillers I’d taken, making me queasy, as if I’d been breathing petrol fumes for too long.
By the time I reached my front door, I was throbbing with pain and frantically swallowed two more pills, despite exceeding the stated dose. Like they were going to help.
CHAPTER FOUR
The blinds in the kitchen were shut, and the cool darkness was a relief from the bright light outside, the slashing pain in my head calming slightly. I put the bag down and left it unpacked. The only things in it I was really interested in were the painkillers, and they weren’t going to go off in the warmth. I was glad about that, as I didn’t really want to look again in the meat-laden fridge, my stomach turning with the thought of all that offal.
“Chloe?” My voice wasn’t much more than a whisper as I moved into the sitting room doorway. She was standing with her back to me, and the gloomy air was filled with a kind of half-light that came from whatever sunshine could filter through the heavy curtains, distorting shadows and haloing her new shape as if heaven were celebrating her awfulness. I waited for her to acknowledge me, and from the corner of my eye I could see dust particles hovering in the air between us, floating freely, released from fear of dust and polish. I don’t think cleaning had been on either Chloe’s or my agenda for quite some time now. As I reached for the light switch, her voice stopped me.
“Don’t. Leave them off.” She sounded muffled, and when she turned to face me, I realised with horror why. Christ, what was she doing? I stared, my own mouth agape, disgust squeezing at my guts. My hand dropped from the light switch, no longer wanting to brighten the darkness. I could see enough. More than enough.
Half-eaten raw meat hung sloppily from her lips, its sticky juice and loose lumps dripping down her large body to the floor below; looking down I could see a trail of dark stained splatter marks leading from the kitchen to here. She was chewing slowly, her eyes glazed as her lips and cheeks moved. Jesus Christ, Jesus fucking Christ. My stomach roiled and heaved, but despite the revulsion—and yes, it really was revulsion by then—I took a step forward. Even if Chloe was turning into god only knew what . . . at that point I wasn’t ready to accept that she’d changed forever, that she was leaving me, she was still carrying our baby.
“What’s going on, Chloe?” God, she stank. The skin on her face and arms shone and shimmered, dragging my appalled attention to it. Something like sweat was oozing from her; something like sweat, but not. This was thicker and foul-smelling, sweet and bitter all at once, the consistency of mucus.
Smiling, she raised her hand, ripping free another bite of the slimy flesh she was gripping. Smacking sounds filled the air as she chewed happily, mouth open.
“I’m talking to Helena.”
Shaking my head, I raised my hands and turned away. I was tired. My head hurt. And there really wasn’t much more of this I could take. Talking to Helena? What the hell was she saying? How could that be? Chloe and Helena had studied law together, and had been best friends in a way, before relationships turned up and changed things. She was a cheerful girl. Bright. Funny. Not a patch on Chloe, but a babe in her own way. But Helena lived in Birmingham, fifty miles away. Fifty miles away.
As I stood there, my head was filled with the image of another dark lounge, another fat and stinking girl, and another lost man hearing, I’m talking to Chloe. And then, as fear took hold of my imagination, that image multiplied and multiplied until there were a thousand girls, a million, in darkened rooms having secret silent conversations with each other. My blood chilled and Dr. Judge’s desperately despairing face filled my mind, his words an undying echo I seemed to hear constantly, This is happening to all of them. All of us. The whole world. Christ, my nightmare image probably wasn’t so wild. My shoulders slumped as I faced the stranger that was my girlfriend. She was staring intently forward. I tried to reason, to understand. For my own sake, if not for hers.
“But you’re not even on the phone. How can you be talking to Helena?”
Giggling, she sprayed particles of blood onto our sofa. She didn’t look at me. “Don’t need a phone.”
“Look, Chloe, this has got to stop, you can’t go on—”
The force lifted me from my feet and slammed me into the wall five feet away, knocking the wind out of me, treating my body like a rag doll. What the hell was happening? Fear roared to life, my hip banging sharply into the skirting board behind me as I collapsed to the floor. My head was pounding and my neck was twisted slightly, but when I tried to move, I couldn’t. Oh shit, I’ve broken my neck, I’ve broken my neck and am paralysed. Desperate for her help, I strained my immobile head forward and managed a pitiful mewl.
She flashed her eyes at me as if I were an irritating insect, and the sound in my throat stopped as my head banged roughly against the plaster, my vision filling with stars. She was controlling me, controlling my body. I tried to suffocate the thought that followed. And what the hell is she planning to do to me?
“Stay there. It’ll be over soon.” Grunting at me, she lowered herself carefully onto the sofa and went back to wherever that glazed look took her.
Time ticked by, my being immobile, pressed painfully against the wall, my head pounding away the seconds, pain and numb agony bleeding into every area of my body. The pressure was unrelenting and total. Not a single muscle in my body, outside of those needed to breathe and pump blood, could move, and the effects of that were more than anything I could have imagined.
First there were pins and needles, starting in my toes, working their way slowly up my calves and into my thighs. By the time they reached my hips and upper body, my feet had moved to the next stage and were raging at me, begging for some slight movement, and the sun had moved beyond the range of the lounge windows, lazily shifting into the cool afternoon, leaving us, the new Chloe and I, in the grainy grey gloom that was for now the confines of our existence.
About five hours in, after the first tingling of numbness, came the white heat of frozen agony, limbs screaming for release, for any kind of movement. My mind was a haze, the torturous agony more than I could believe possible from just being in exactly one spot for so long. All I could do was watch her, my bleary eyes drying beneath their open lid
s, and hope to somehow retain my sanity.
As night drew in I waited for her to sleep, prayed for it, Mark’s words echoing in my dazed head. It didn’t hurt so much when Shelley was asleep. Maybe that would work with Chloe, too. Maybe if she would just go to sleep, this awful hold she had over me would loosen, allow me some blessed movement. I didn’t even think as far as leaving. Escape wasn’t on my agenda, I knew I couldn’t muster the amount of energy that would require, not even in my fantasies. All I wanted was to change position. To shift slightly would bring more relief than I could possibly imagine and I wanted it more than water or food or anything. I waited and waited, screaming with frustration inside my silent mannequin of a body, waiting for the first sign of weariness to appear in the monster that was my girlfriend.
But she didn’t sleep. Not as far as I could tell from my position in hell on the floor, at any rate. Her huge, and god, she was huge by that point, frame filled our leather sofa, her legs spread slightly, no doubt in order to stop her thighs chafing. She seemed to be neither asleep nor awake, in some kind of trance. Occasionally, she let out a small giggle or undefined word as her body jerked slightly, the frame of the furniture creaking beneath her.
As the night wore on, I drifted into a nightmarish world somewhere between sleeping and waking, my brain almost hallucinating, my eyelids having no choice but to stay open. My bladder shrieked inside for release, but stuck there, become one with my living room, I couldn’t even piss. Through the shadows and darkness, I thought at times that I saw shapes moving beneath her T-shirt, as if something was wriggling beneath her skin, and at some point, in the dark stillness a few hours before dawn, she pulled up the hem of her skirt and rubbed at herself, taking her pleasure loudly and animalistically. Mainly, she just ignored me.
It must have been about six o’clock the next morning that she heaved herself upwards and shuffled into the kitchen. In the cold grey light I could see the sweat and grease patches she had left behind on the sofa, both large cushions indented where she’d sat.
My head buzzed, my body beyond pain and totally exhausted, but when I heard the grunting and panting coming from the next room I mustered every ounce of remaining will to try and turn my head and see what was happening, but to no avail. What was happening to her? The sound of banging and beating on the units filled the house for at least ten minutes as she cursed with indefinable words, her tone violent and angry. Finally, she must have slid down the fridge freezer to sit on the floor, and then after she broke long and noisy wind, she settled down to snorting occasionally as she panted. After about half an hour, I heard something squelch, something wet perhaps, on the quarry tiles we had chosen together not that very long ago. And then there was silence.
I’d like to say that in that few moments I was worried about her, if she was okay, if she was even alive, but the survival instinct is an amazing thing, and if I’m honest—and now there’s really no point in being anything else—then as I lay there the only person I was concerned about was me, Matthew Edge, nearly thirty and not ready to die. My heart pounded in my chest. What if she was dead? What if she was dead in there and I was going to be trapped here until I starved to death? How long would that take? Would I go mad before I died?
Rushes of panic drew my insides further in, my flesh recoiling from the idea, and then suddenly even that froze as I heard movement from the kitchen, the sound of Chloe dragging herself to her feet. New fears overtook those of only seconds ago. What had happened to her in there? Was she going to come back more nightmarish than before? I remembered the meat, the way she’d chewed at it, and wondered how much she had left. Was she going to come back hungrier than before?
She appeared in the doorway and stared at me for a moment before moaning and slumping into the door frame, her eyes shutting.
As soon as she made the noise, the pressure lifted from me, my bladder emptying itself instantly. I didn’t care, shamelessly enjoying the pure pleasure of release, my headache gone. Oh god, it felt good. Even the pain of moving my limbs after such a long time immobile was welcome. I sat there on the floor, in a pool of my own piss, relishing the moment, almost unaware of her until she spoke.
“You have to get out.”
Her voice was a monotone, but it was her voice. My heart leapt a little. So Chloe still was there somewhere in this mutated body. I blinked several times, trying to focus on her, my eyeballs painfully grainy and needing liquid. I rubbed them, trying to kill the numbness in my fingers at the same time. My hands were freezing, my whole body was freezing, and I shivered as I clawed myself upright.
“You have to get out.” Her words were harder this time. I leaned against the wall that had held me prisoner, needing its support while my blood circulated, my limbs trying to steady themselves.
“What do you mean?” My throat felt like sandpaper, the dryness irritating as I tried to speak, reminding me of how thirsty I was. Pushing myself away from the wall, I took a few unsteady steps towards her, my heart and stomach aching. Despite the past day of hell, despite everything, I found I was desperate to stay. To stay with her. I was terribly afraid, but hearing her voice again, my Chloe’s voice, I knew she was scared, too, and I couldn’t imagine turning my back on her.
If I left her, that would be it. Everything over. And I didn’t think I could do that. Not to her or our baby. I needed them. I needed them to make the world normal again. To put everything back just how it was. I raised a hand to reach for her, but she stepped back.
“There isn’t much time. It’s starting.”
I stared at her. “I can’t leave you. I love you. And our baby.” I tried to smile, forcing the muscles in my face back to life.
She shook her head and sighed before meeting my gaze. I could see pain in there, as if she were fighting something, but more than that I could see that she loved me, too. Surely that counted for something.
“You still care for me, Chloe. You know you do.”
“It doesn’t matter, Matt.” The words rang hollow around the room and she looked at me pityingly from those strange blank eyes. “I’m not me anymore. I’m . . . I’m something different. And I can’t control it for much longer.” There was something in her eyes that I couldn’t understand. “And I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to want to.”
Suddenly I wondered if her pain was caused by releasing me from the prison her mind had forced me into. Was she fighting her new self? Was I going to be slammed back against the wall any second? I didn’t care, not while she was here. While she was back.
“We’ve got to try, Chloe. You’ve got to keep fighting. They’ll have an answer soon, they’ll cure you. . . .” Man’s old-fashioned faith in they again. We either think they’re trying to kill us, or that they can find a cure for just about anything. That’s what they do after all, isn’t it? Kill or cure?
She barked a laugh at me. “There is no cure, Matt. It’s too late. It’s too late for all of us. So cut the shit and fuck off. While you still can.”
I ignored the implied threat and stepped close to where she stood, blocking the doorway to the kitchen.
“We’re having a baby, Chloe. Have you forgotten about that? Can’t you fight for that, even if you can’t fight for me?” She couldn’t give up on our baby. Not my Chloe.
“There isn’t any baby. Not anymore.”
My world stopped as I stared at her, waiting for some evidence of a lie. “What? What did you say?”
Stepping backwards, she opened up a path to the kitchen. “Take a look.”
I shuffled forward, needing to see, but not wanting to, knowing that this was it, this was the end of everything I knew and cared about. Behind me, Chloe re-took her position in the doorway. Suddenly, all the panting and cursing I’d heard earlier made sense.
Tears burning my eyes, I fell to my knees on the tiles that were slick with blood. “Oh no. Oh no, no, no.”
The tiny stillborn fetus was barely formed, but still just recognisable, one small arm developing a perfect hand an
d fingers towards its end, ears and nose beginning to take shape. My child. My beautiful never-to-be child. I sobbed openly, my vision blurred, but still I stared. I owed it to this little life. Horror mixed with indescribable anguish as I understood what I was seeing.
The other arm was missing, as were the legs, ripped away from the mutilated torso. I looked again at the congealing blood around me. Something had chewed on my child. Something had eaten part of my baby. Hearing my breath rushing in my ears, I felt completely cold, inside and out, and turned to face Chloe. She read the hatred in my mind.
“It wasn’t me.”
How could she sound so matter of fact, so uninvolved? I thought of the raw meat I’d watched her eat.
“You’re lying.” I spat the words at her, filling them with every lost hope I had.
“No. It wasn’t me.” Again that monotone sucked at her voice, and I realised she had been right. Our love didn’t matter. Not anymore. It was too late for that. I dragged myself back to my feet, and we stared at each other hopelessly.
“There’s not much time. Leave, Matt.”
“If it wasn’t you . . . then who?” I tried to keep the quiver out of my voice.
She paused before turning away and lumbering slowly back to the sofa in the sitting room, easing herself into the seat and staring forward.
“I think there’s something else growing inside me.” Some of that gravely non-Chloeness was coming back. “A different baby.” She smiled unpleasantly into space, rubbing her expanse of stomach. “A new kind of baby.”
A wave of nausea ran through me and I clutched at the breakfast bar. The headache was coming back. I stared at her, and then at our dead future on the floor at my feet, and then back to her again. She was starting to convulse slightly, her huge body jolting and twisting, something happening under her skirt, something starting to emerge from there.
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