Parasite ; Sleeper Cells ; Kingdoms of the Dead

by Ian Woodhead

  His run of bad luck hadn’t finished with Kenny. He had decided to make his way towards the café section, deep in the inner zone, close to Government House. That area was well known for having the richest picking of anywhere else in the citystate. It was also the most dangerous place for anyone without a job or home to be seen. At the moment, Kenny hadn’t cared, the last meal he’d had was half a burger that he’d found discarded under a parked car. Although he knew it must have been there for at least three days, Kenny ate it anyway.

  The sound of shouting had injected running juice into his legs as soon as he entered the café section. Instead of diving under a car and fleeing back the way he’d come, Kenny hadn’t moved, his legs refusing to budge as two men ran towards him. They both wore the uniform of the security force and yet both of them had looks of extreme terror etched on their faces. They both raced past Kenny as if he wasn’t even there. The next thing he’d seen was another figure walking towards him. This time, he did move as soon as the stench of rotting meat flooded his senses.

  He turned around and ran into the arms of another one; it had fastened its teeth into Kenny’s neck.

  “Joseph, tell me what happened? Why were you there? I mean, in the inner zone. More to the point, how did you find me?”

  His companion sat down, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes. “God, how I have missed feeling the sun’s warmth on my face. It’ll be even better once we both cross over for real.” Joseph smiled up at Kenny. “You’ve traveled through the three worlds, that much I’ve already guessed. So you will have noticed how our other selves are attracted to each other?”

  He nodded, thinking of Tony.

  “Haven’t you figured that out yet, Kenny? Your body is immune to the virus. It’s always been immune. Only we couldn’t synthesize a cure. Your body lacked an essential protein, and …”

  “Wait a minute,” he growled. “How can I have always been immune? What about all that shit I’ve pushed into my veins, keeping me from turning into a dead thing?”

  “Kenny, I’m sorry, I really am, but you’ve never needed it. I arrived seconds after those two guards ran past you. I saw the dead thing lunge but I was too late to stop it biting you.

  “Those two guards must have found their spine and came back. They put down the two dead things and were almost about to put a bullet in your brain. I distracted them, they gave chase, and before I shook them off and returned you had already gone. I searched everywhere. In the end, I returned to my own world. When I came back, I ended up in the lab that belonged to that world’s Joseph and after the fucker had tortured me, he locked me up.”

  “You asked me if I was ready, Joseph. Well, I am ready. Now tell me why you have taken our minds to this world.”

  “I don’t need to,” Joseph replied. “Look over there.”

  Kenny followed the man’s gaze. Stephen, Mortimer, and Tony were climbing over a mound of rubble, heading towards a hole in the ground.

  “Come on, you’ll want to watch this, it’s about to happen any minute.”

  “What is, for fuck’s sake!” Kenny shouted.

  Joseph stopped and grabbed Kenny. “When the power in the building was interrupted, I got out of my cell. Well, I didn’t stop to dance about in joy at being a free man.” He stared into Kenny’s eyes. “You are aware that they want to sever the bridge?”

  “Of course I do, we have to stop them!”

  “With luck, I already have. I made some adjustments to their plans. You see, I had no idea that they would contaminate your food. The city can’t be allowed to die, Kenny. No matter how these two worlds feel about it. I intend to bring them all here.”

  “So we just sit back and watch as these events unfold?”

  “Of course. Don’t you think you’ve done enough, Kenny? Just relax. For the moment, your work is over. Let the ants scurry about, believing that their work will save their two worlds. Come on, let’s go watch them, Kenny.”

  The landscape blurred, becoming a medley of greens and blue. Kenny clenched his fists and waited. This transfer was nothing as stomach churning as a physical shift, but the wild confusion of colors still threatened to scar his eyeballs. A soothing dull yellow of subtle autumn colors dominated his vision before he had chance to shut his eyes.

  The sharp cold hit him first, seeping through his body and settling on his bones. Kenny told himself that it wasn’t real, yet it didn’t stop him from shivering. He looked around, gaping at the very familiar structure. He shivered again but this time it wasn’t from the artificial cold. “Oh, I’m here again?” Kenny’s eyes stopped at where the archway should be. “Oh please, no. Not that!”

  All that remained of those magnificent shards were a couple of blackened and broken stumps. He heard no songs; not one voice reached out to him. “What the fuck have those murdering bastards done to them?” he shouted.

  Joseph grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back. “We are still on Food World. Relax. The shards that sang to you are still there.”

  He couldn’t relax, although Joseph’s words did coat this vile abomination with a thin layer of sugar. He growled low in his throat which only increased in volume at the sight of the other Joseph standing with Mortimer and Tony, all crowded around a tall metal cylinder. At the top, Kenny saw a transparent casing with a piece of dull yellow shard glowing behind the covering.

  “The idiots have all lost sight of the true goal of trying to save our fucking species. Their hatred towards your world would have doomed them all. They’ll soon get their chance to settle their differences though.”

  He felt calm enough to speak. The sight of so much destruction had shaken him to the core. “What are they trying to do, Joseph?”

  “They think a new beginning is about to dawn. A new world to explore. The idiots believe they’ve been able to establish a new bridge,” he replied, smiling. “They are now in the process of severing the link to your world. Just look at that intense expression on Joseph’s face. I hope I don’t look that stupid when I’m focusing on a difficult problem.”

  “Wait, what do you mean they’re about to sever the fucking link!” Kenny yelled. What about my sister? Hell, we’re still there as well.”

  “Calm yourself, Kenny. The other Josephs are just as clever as me but they only know as much as I allow them to. That Joseph tortured me for months, using my knowledge to build his machines. Both Josephs farmed the shards from their worlds, Kenny, placing them into their devices. Both believe that they open a gate that opens and closes. They don’t understand that the shards are the fabric that holds the worlds together. When they travel, their journey punches a hole through that fabric. The tear does repair, but the new flesh is so thin. These idiots are about to discover just how thin the new flesh is, Kenny. Every repaired tear is about to come undone.”

  The surroundings bled into one blended shade of dark blue. Kenny thought that Joseph had yet another sight to show him, until a jolt of mind-searing agony detonated through his chest. Kenny shot up and ripped the black device off his head. Hot sweat poured down. He blinked several times, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dim light.

  Kenny carefully placed the lifeless device on his lap and pressed the palm of his hand on his breastbone. Only the memory of the pain remained. What the fuck had just happened? He swiveled his head, expecting to see Joseph and hoping he’d supply the answers, but all he saw lying on the bed next to him was another black device.

  “Joseph?” he called. “Where are you?”

  He swung his legs across and carefully climbed off the bed, feeling his real aches and pains gleefully reminding Kenny that his body had mourned for the return of his mind.

  He picked up the other device, noticed two spots of blood clinging to the inside, and dropped it. Joseph hadn’t informed him of his intentions prior to Kenny placing the device on his head. This certainly wasn’t part of the man’s plan, that much Kenny did know. He’d worked out enough of the man’s personality to realize that Joseph hadn’t finished s
howing off just yet; he hadn’t finished explaining how clever he had been.

  Kenny watched one of the blood droplets fall onto the couch. Somebody must have ripped that thing right off Joseph’s head. So why hadn’t the same happened to him? Nobody else was in here with him, and the chair that he’d lodged against the outer door hadn’t moved.

  They must be in one of the other rooms; it was the only other explanation. A couple of blood spots stained the side of the table standing in the middle of the room. Kenny walked over, gazing in bemusement at the piles of multi-colored Legos clumped across the surface.

  What was this place? He’d been too hyped up to give the interior much notice earlier. It looked like a children’s playroom. The building blocks certainly supported that notion, until Kenny saw the crossbow and the crossbow-shaped outline drawn on the wall with red crayon.

  Kenny discarded the purpose of this room. Like it really made a fucking difference? He had enough shit to worry about right now. Kenny hurried over to the interior door and pressed his ear up against the surface. No obvious sounds of movement or voices reached him but that didn’t mean that much.

  He closed his eyes just for one second and thought about his sister still out there, probably losing her mind with worry. “Come on, Kenny,” he muttered. “Just open the fucking door.”

  His cautious side refused to be browbeaten by a few hastily spoken words of support. Kenny rested his hand on the door handle, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not bring himself to open the door. “You fucking coward,” he hissed. He turned around and slammed his back against the door. What was it with him? He took a deep ragged breath, still feeling the sweat drying on his skin from when he’d been jolted back into reality.

  Kenny reached for the crossbow, pulled back the bow, and slotted a bolt into the botch. He’d never fired one before but he didn’t think it would be too difficult. He then allowed a slight smirk to play on his face when he realized that he wasn’t being gutless at all. Not after he’d been through, today. He shook off the alien feeling, putting it down to a side effect of being under that device. Kenny kicked the door open and ran out of the room.

  Several dead things looked up from their meal and growled at him. It took him just two seconds to recognise the partially eaten remains of his companion. Kenny yelled out and fired the crossbow, the bolt missing all of the zombies and burrowing into the wall. Every zombie slowly got to its feet and fanned out. Kenny saw the ones on the edge, flattening their backs against the wall and sliding towards him.

  “You’re not supposed to be able to do that!” he moaned. Three in the middle then glared at Kenny and smiled before lurching forward. He dropped the weapon, spun around, and dived through the door. He didn’t need to look behind him to know that his pursuers were almost on his back. What the fuck had happened to them, how could they be so attentive?

  He reached the outer door, grabbed the chair, picked it up off the floor and swung it around, crying out as the closest dead thing actually tried to duck under the object. Kenny smashed it over its head before rushing out of the door. This time he slammed it shut.

  “Fuck you!” he screamed. “Rot in hell, you bastards.” Kenny moaned out in disbelief as the door handle turned. He reached out with both hands, holding it upright, stopping them from getting out of the room.

  “It’s not been one of your better days, has it, Kenny.”

  No, not him. He turned his head to see Rossini standing in the middle of the corridor with the other Joseph standing behind him, his hand placed firmly over Diane’s mouth. Kenny looked into his sister’s terrified eyes. “Please, don’t do this. Just let her go, let us both go.”

  Joseph laughed. “Listen to you! Oh, you really are a funny man. You are not going anywhere, don’t you see that? As soon as you let go of that handle, those Source World zombies will be on you in seconds. Have you seen how fast those fuckers can move, Kenny? Oh, you’re going to be ripped into tiny little bits and there really isn’t anything you can do about it.”

  “It’s ready,” said Rossini. “The coordinates have aligned.”

  Joseph laughed. “Oh, that’s good news. It’s been fun!”

  Kenny blinked, watching the three of them vanish. “You bastard!” he screamed. “No, you’re not leaving me here to die.”

  The handle slid down, despite his best attempts to stop them. “You haven’t won,” he snarled. Kenny let go of the door and kicked it back, before spinning around and running in the opposite direction.

  He charged down the hallway, painfully aware that the dead things weren’t far behind him. His body was close to collapse, he couldn’t keep this pace up for much longer, and with each faltering step they gained a few extra inches on him. Kenny’s adrenalin died at the sight of the barred metal door at the end of the hallway. “It can’t end like this!” he screamed. Kenny clenched his fists, then stopped and turned around.

  “Come on then, you undead bastards!” he snarled at the two approaching zombies. “You won’t take me without a fight.” Kenny glared at the closest dead thing, a tall, middle-aged man with long, flowing white hair. “You’re going down!” He sent a silent prayer to his sister before running forward, screaming at the top of his lungs.

  The End …?

  Bright yellow light speared through his closed eyelids. He turned his head to the side and yelled out when he ended up with a mouthful of wet grass. Kenny snapped open his eyes and sat up. The fields stretched for miles in front of him, but this time, they weren’t empty. Thousands of people just like him were getting to their feet, looking around in fear and confusion.

  Kenny spun around and ran towards the small collection of individuals standing in front of a small grey building. They had already seen him and were making their way towards Kenny. He growled low in his throat, wondering which one to smack first, wondering how he was going to find out where those two had taken his sister.

  Woven in Blood

  Book one

  Sleeper Cells

  ___________

  Ian Woodhead

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Second Edition

  Copyright May 2013 by Ian Woodhead

  Main edit by Malina Roos.

  Love, hugs and kisses to Lori Hays for all the help she gave me while I constructed this story.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, scanning or otherwise, without prior permission of the author.

  Please visit me here -

  https://www.facebook.com/Ian.Woodhead.Author

  Prologue

  The light from the pale moon made the puddle of oil coated water shimmer like liquid silver. Cade McCrae took a deep breath and felt his heartbeat increase when he detected the faint scent of her perfume beneath the multiple layers of industrial stench. She had turned up; his girl had actually made true of her promise to meet him here. Cade wandered between the rusted shelves, gazing from left to right, desperate to catch a glimpse of Katy Barnes through the gaps.

  He slowed down his breathing, not wanting her to sense his presence. He frowned, still not convinced that Katy hadn’t brought along company in the shape of her older brother. Cade checked his watch, noting that he had a few more minutes before he was due to meet her, just enough time to finish scouting the area.

  Her scent now filled the air, overpowering the stink of ancient grease and oil. Cade caught sight of a cascade of primary colours blasting through the dull greys and browns. He dropped to the ground; keeping hold of the metal shelving, he had no wish to touch the floor and cover his fingers in the muck under his feet. He still expected to help the girl out of her clothes. The whole sexy ambience would fly through one of the many smashed windows if he covered her pret
ty clothes in black grease.

  There she was and Katy had indeed arrived without an escort. He watched her look at her phone and sigh. Was she just checking the time or perhaps thinking of giving Cade a quick call? There were just a couple of minutes left before their appointed rendezvous time. Cade glanced towards the huge open hanger door to her right, just checking that there was nobody skulking outside. Even if her brother had decided to hide outside, Cade knew he’d still be able to lose him in this abandoned industrial labyrinth. He knew this area like the back of his hand.

  “Are you there?” she hissed.

  He saw nobody about and his instincts told him that this really was the genuine article and the gorgeous blonde girl standing just a few metres from him really did want to see Cade. The girl wrapped her arms around her chest and shivered.

  “Come on, I’m not mucking about, you’re supposed to be waiting for me!”

  Despite his self-taught calming routine, Cade could not stop his heart from trying to beat through his ribs when he detected a tinge of annoyance and fear in her dulcet tones. He ran his tongue over his lips, tasting minty toothpaste before he stood up. “Over here.”

  The girl spun around, fist raised, lips trembling and eyes as large as saucers as she screamed “You bastard! Do you get off from creeping up on people?”

  Cade stepped over a chunk of decaying machinery and walked over to her, keeping his eyes on her bright blue eyes, which were full of indignation and fury but were still beautiful. He knew he’d never be able to stop looking into those delightful orbs, even if they were demanding an apology.

  “Didn’t you hear me approach? He was making enough noise to wake the dead.” He knew her game; Katy expected him to come over all meek, to not stop apologising to let her walk all over him. Cade wasn’t going to let that happen; she was the most desirable girl in college and could have her pick of any boy. Yet, Katy chose Cade? It didn’t make sense to him, not at all, unless it was some bizarre tactic to get her own back for embarrassing her in front of the class this morning.