Parasite ; Sleeper Cells ; Kingdoms of the Dead

by Ian Woodhead

  “It’s not far from here, Alison. Thank you for doing this, by the way. You have no idea how much this phone means to me.” He didn’t receive a response, not that he found that too surprising, she barely spoke to anyone. “Alison, I’ve found it.” He bent down and pretended to pick it up. His subterfuge was wasted on her, Alison hadn’t even noticed. The girl was too busy staring at an opening in the wall.

  “If you’ve got your phone, shine the light at this for me,” she whispered. “Holy fuck, that is so weird, there should not be a hole here.”

  Dan rushed over; he pulled the phone out of his pocket and activated the light. He passed Alison his phone, taking the opportunity to stand next to the girl. Her sweet scent of perfume sent his hormones into a frenzy of activity.

  The girl’s frightened yelp, that immediately killed his desire. Dan followed the beam of light and saw a large pile of skeletons, stacked in an untidy heap in the corner of the cavern.

  “Oh my god,” She gasped. “Wait here.” Alison gave him back the phone. “I need to get the boss.”

  Dan’s mum stood up and placed the cup in the sink. “Your dad already told me how Mr Calhoun reacted, something about the bones being prehistoric and having to bring in some museum experts?”

  “That’s what he said,” Dan replied.

  “Well, there we go,” she said, smiling. “There’s no way either of you will lose your job. I’ve known that Thomas Calhoun since school. This will make his whole year.”

  “Why?”

  His dad laughed. “Calhoun is a money grabbing bastard, that’s why. This will bring the tourists to his caverns in droves.”

  “Come on, you,” said his mum, addressing Dan’s father. “You promised me a trip to the market today. Make sure you lock up the house, Dan.” She leaned down and kissed his forehead. “Don’t you worry about anything, sweetheart.”

  His parents left the kitchen and shut the door. Dan picked up his spoon and dropped it into the bowl as the shakes started up again. Dan hadn’t told his mum or dad the full tale. Nobody knew what else he had found in that previously hidden cavern, not even his co-workers.

  He waited until their car had left the driveway before reaching into his pocket and bringing out a large gold ring. This wasn’t the one he intended to give to Alison, that one was still in its box in the pocket of his work trousers. This one had come from the finger of a corpse.

  As soon as Alison had left to get the boss, Dan tentatively walked towards the bones, his morbid fascination was too great to ignore. Before he reached the first dusty skull, something else took his attention away from the rotting pile of ancient bones. To the left of where he stood, he noticed a tiny crack of jagged light shining through the wall. He swung the light over to the wall and could just about make out what looked like the outline of an archway rising up about three feet off the floor.

  The section of the wall just slid in when Dan placed his fingers on it and a sudden burst of cold air, stinking of rotten meat breezed past him. Dan blinked and the next thing he remembered was looking down at a large body, bound in fraying cloth.

  Dan had no recollection of what happened next. He just remembered opening his eyes and blinking at the harsh white light coming from Mr Calhoun’s torch. He was standing a few feet from the pile of bones holding something in his clenched fist. Dan had no idea why, but he neglected to tell either of them about his additional discovery.

  He dropped the ring on the table and stared at the thing, in disgust. He needed to get rid of it. There was something about this old piece of jewellery that sent ice-cold shivers along his spine.

  Chapter Two

  Georgina Higgins tapped the horn, feeling like such a heel when the old lady in front of their Land Rover jumped. Her pity soon switched to annoyance when the woman in the middle of the road snapped her head around and gave Georgina a hateful glare. She watched the old woman shout off a string of silent obscenities before continuing her slow journey across the road. She clamped her mouth shut, to avoid returning a torrent of abuse. As if it was Georgina’s fault that she suddenly decided to step out into the middle of the road?

  For the tenth time since climbing into the car, the archaeologist wished that she had listened to her good sense and not let that annoying husband persuade her from accompanying him on this pointless assignment. Georgina glanced into her windscreen mirror and watched him continue to pour through the beige folder.

  Aside from the man’s scribbled notes and reference material, the folder contained about a dozen photo printouts. Georgina thought that her husband had just found out he had six months to live when he rushed into her office earlier on and threw the photos on the desk in front of her. He excitedly explained that some cavern owner had stumbled upon an earth-shattering discovery and they just had to check it out.

  As he continued to study the photos, William hummed some monotonic noise, stopping every so often to catch his breath or to change the octave. He hadn’t stopped making that irritating humming sound since they left the museum carpark. William always did that annoying noise when he was overly excited. When they first met, thirty years ago, Georgina thought it was so sweet how he made such a silly noise whenever something excited him. At the time, she thought that it was his most endearing feature. Now, it just got under her skin and made her want to slap William around the back of his head with a blunt instrument.

  “William, I’m trying to concentrate here. All I can hear is that stupid noise.”

  He looked away from the photos. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, smiling at her. “Am I making that noise again? Oh dear, I don’t realise that I’m doing it most of the time. I can put the radio on if you like?”

  He gazed back down and within a few seconds, his humming started again. Was he doing it on purpose now?

  “Have you even considered the possibility that these could be photoshopped?” Georgina had spent a whole hour going through the photos, at first, Georgina had shared her husband’s enthusiasm, but her cynical nature won out in the end. Somebody must have gone to great lengths in digitally manipulating these images. It just appeared to be too convenient. Over the decades, Georgina had read about rare cave finds, of potholers stumbling over a few scattered bones form ancient hominids but nothing before on this scale.

  “Of course I have,” he replied.

  There wasn’t a trace of irritability in his tone. His calm and measured approach to life was another feature of William’s that, over the years, had begun to wind her up. No matter what she said to him or how she reacted, he just never got angry. The man stayed levelheaded no matter the motivation. Unless, of course, that motivation involved prehistoric bones, then William turned into an excitable boy at Christmas, waiting with baited breath to see what Santa had brought him.

  William just lived only for his work, nothing else could get him excited, at least, that’s what she assumed up until a couple of days ago. It made her own discovery all the more painful to take.

  “That is exactly why I suggested that you came along. You can conduct your own assessment. Okay, I admit, I may seem a little overexcited with this discovery but, I’m confident that your balanced findings will help to keep my feet firmly on the ground.”

  “That’s it, there no other reason, William?” she replied, trying to hold back the angry tears and trying not to allow her voice to break. “Now that we’re alone, are you really sure that there is nothing else you would like to tell me?”

  William just gave her reflection a slight smile and shook his head. “Nothing springs to mind, only that I’m happy to see you back and I think this time together, away from the rest of the museum staff will be good for the both of us.”

  She watched him return to the photographs, he resumed his humming. Georgina gripped the steering wheel, watching her knuckles turn white. She had been building up to this confrontation ever since she had found out what the dirty old man had been doing while was she was away in Egypt.

  What had she said wrong? Georgina ha
d rehearsed her speech repeatedly. It didn’t make sense, the man should have confessed, he was supposed to blurt out that he had been sleeping with that mucky tart.

  “According to the map, the next turn should be the one for the village of Colbeck, Dearest.”

  Georgina slammed her mouth shut again, this time to stop herself from calling the fucker every name under the sun. She wanted to stop the car, pull him out of the back seat and punch the bastard straight in his cheating, lying mouth.

  It was an open secret that the museum’s new research assistant, Trisha Campbell, was slowly sleeping her way through all of their young, male staff. For the obvious reason, Georgina somehow thought that at least her husband would be safe from her man-eating grasp.

  For crying out loud, her William was about as sexy as a rotting tree stump and about as interesting as one too. What on earth could anybody see in a stick-thin fifty-eight year old balding man? The thought of that young naked body bouncing up and down on him made her want to vomit. Did he make that humming sound while she rode him?

  “Don’t miss the turning, Georgina, it’s the next one.”

  She should have stayed in Egypt, as she had planned, for another month. By that time, that bitch would have moved on to somebody else and she would have been none the wiser. Georgina indicated and turned into the next street. Georgina would have been none the wiser if she hadn’t found her husband’s phone down the back of the chair. The messages she found on there had shocked her to the very core. More than anything, William’s vivid imagination had knocked her for six. She had always found him to be a very boring lover and had never participated in any of the exploits he described to that woman.

  “I can’t tell you how excited I am over this. I’ll go so far to say that we have just uncovered a new hominid species. Judging by their remarkable preservation, this species could have even existed side by side with our early descendants. Of course, we won’t know for sure until we get to the caverns.” William leaned forward. “Just put your scepticism to the side and think about this, Georgina. Just imagine if it really is an undiscovered hominid.”

  William laughed, “Oh, I know that the cavern owner will want to take all the credit. He’s a business man, that’s only natural. You know though, as well as I, that we’re the ones who’ll receive the acknowledgment. We’ll be famous throughout the academic world, hell, we might even become media celebrities.” He sat back in his seat and sighed. “There’ll be no more begging for grants, no more brain-draining lecture tours and best of all, no more stuffy second class museum. We’ll be able to do exactly what we want.”

  “It sounds amazing,” she said, frantically mulling over William’s words. She had been too eaten up inside to consider the possible outcome if these bones did turn out to be genuine. The humming moron was not wrong. The scientific community would be all over the pair of them. For the first time since yesterday, the woman smiled. She would be able to go back to Egypt to continue the dig. There would be no money worry and that bastard of a husband would be able to screw whomever he damn well pleased. She would be shut of him.

  “Hey, sweetheart, I don’t know about you, William, but I could really go for a choccy bar and a can of coke.” It amazed Georgina that her voice didn’t break. That actually sounded as though she meant it. If he could lie and cheat, then there was no reason why Georgina could not do the same. She decided that she could play the dutiful wife at least, until they got the money.

  He rubbed his hands. “Now that sounds like a sterling idea, I don’t believe I’ve had anything to eat since last night, too excited, I suppose.” He glanced at the GPS on his phone. “According to this, there should be a garage on your right.” He paused. “Are you sure you don’t want to wait until we get to the caverns first? We’re not that far from them.”

  She shook her head, taking perverse pleasure in seeing his face drop. Georgina was just as eager as William was; she decided that upsetting the man, no matter how trivial, had to take precedence. “I’m sure you can wait just a few more minutes,” she replied, pulling into the garage forecourt. “This won’t take long.”

  He nodded. “You’re right. We don’t want to look like a pair of eager beavers.” He unclipped his seat belt and climbed out of the car. “I’ll get these, my dearest. I’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

  Georgina matched his smile with one of her own then watched him amble past the pumps and over to the shop. As William pushed through the glass door, she reached around, picked up the folder, and skimmed through the dozen photographs, trying to look for any more evidence that the cavern owner was trying to pull the wool over their eyes. Her cynical side told Georgina that it really was too good to be true. These kind of discoveries only happened in those crappy pulp fiction books that William used to read. Then again, according to her online research, last night, this village was in the middle of bloody nowhere, probably full of inbred thick locals who had still yet to discover mobile phones, never mind expensive image editing software.

  She threw the pictures back on the seat. “I could do with stretching my legs,” she muttered.

  Georgina unclipped her seatbelt, climbed out of the vehicle and took in a deep breath a country air. She wrinkled her nose, how was this stuff supposed to be good for you? All she could smell was cowshit, petrol and car exhaust.

  She leaned over the warm bonnet of the land rover and watched a battered bright red ford turn into the garage. Bloody hell, and she thought that she needed to replace her land rover. Compared to that crimson wreck, her vehicle was in pristine condition. It looked as though it would fall apart any moment. If the rough road didn’t shake off the car parts then that raucous music would do the job.

  Georgina could hear that grating too-loud music even before they reached the pumps. It really did beggar belief how none of these youths weren’t completely deaf by the time their teen years ended.

  Having no children was one decision she had never regretted. Seeing those kids running riot around the towns made her wish for a simpler time when the youth stayed out of her way.

  “Listen to yourself, Georgina” she scoffed. “You’re not that bloody old.” Come to think of it, wasn’t she very much like that at their age?

  Two young men climbed out of the car. She guessed that they were both the same age of around eighteen. As they swaggered over to the pump, one word summed them both up. These guys were trouble. The two currently arguing whose turn it was to fill up, both fitted the stereotypical farm-hand image. She would have found the whole image rather amusing if it wasn’t for the fact that they both looked a little drunk and very mean. Their ugly, abusive language was beginning to overpower that god-awful music.

  Georgina wished that William would hurry up so they could get out of here. She was starting to get very nervous. He was still staring at the confectionary selection. What was wrong with the man, how hard was it to pick a single chocolate bar?

  She jumped at the sound of a loud whistle. Oh hell, they had seen her. This was all she wanted. William had now disappeared, he must have moved further into the shop. The two men swaggered towards her. Georgina watched them in the reflection of the side window. Bloody hell, the pair of them looked like over-sexed male gorillas. Did they even know how ridiculous they looked? That manly performance impressed nobody. How ironic was this? They were both driving to see the remains of cavemen when living specimens existed right here in the town.

  “You’ve got some pretty decent looking legs for an old chick,” said the blond-haired man. “Are you going to turn around, miss? My mate here wants to see if you’re MILF material.”

  “Fuck you, Samuel,” replied his companion, shouting over the sound of the blond-haired man’s harsh laughter. “I don’t go for grannies.”

  Georgina clenched her fists and slowly turned to face the two men. She stared at the man who had first addressed her, taking in the oiled-stained bleached blue overall, straining against his thickly muscled arms. “Say, you’re not that bad
looking for a brain-dead moron,” she replied, smiling sweetly. Georgina watched the guy’s face turn a bright crimson, he obviously didn’t expect her to retaliate. “As for your ugly friend though?” She glared at the dark-haired man, watching the amusement on his face suddenly drop off. “Judging by the way he keeps giving you the doe eyes, I think he’d rather fuck you, Samuel.”

  “I’m so going to…”

  “Going to what?” she spat, pushing her face into his. “Are you going to hurt me? Going to teach me a lesson?” She watched his anger falter, just for a second. “Do you think the newspaper headline of the local thug assaulting a harmless old woman will be good for your street cred?”

  William chose that moment to leave the shop. She saw his frowning expression and silently cursed. These idiots would rip his skinny arms off.

  “Can I help you two gentlemen?” enquired her husband walking past the youth’s car and stopping in front of the large blond-haired man.

  “Get the fuck out of here,” spat Samuel, “before I tear your face off.”

  “Do you speak to everyone like that?”

  “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

  “I’m her husband and I’d appreciate it if you two gentlemen went about your business. We are on a rather tight schedule.”

  Georgina moaned softly, this was unbelievable. What possessed her to act like some trash-mouthed whore in front of these two thugs? Georgina should have taken the sensible option of climbing back into the land rover and locking the door. She held her breath when she saw the large blond-haired man formed his thick hand into a large fist. Her husband continued to patronise the pair, completely oblivious to the danger he was in.

  “I’ll tell you what, little man. Why don’t you fuck off where you came from and we’ll take your bitchy wife and fuck her tiny brains out in the back of my car.” He leered at Georgina. “I bet you’ve never had three huge cocks inside you all at once.”