Parasite ; Sleeper Cells ; Kingdoms of the Dead

by Ian Woodhead

  He and every other local were going to fucking die. The monster that he had helped to release was coming for them all. Dan reached the top of the stairs and crouched down. Through the open kitchen door, he saw Alison tracing her finger along the lines in the patterned tablecloth. No matter what happened, he decided there and then that he would do anything to make sure that his girlfriend didn’t come to any harm.

  “I’m not going to let anything hurt you, my sweet,” he whispered.

  “Yet you let that fucking monster get inside my body!”

  Dan spun around and staggered into the wall when he saw Terrence leaning over him. “You killed me, just like you have killed everybody else.”

  He shook his head, refusing to believe that he was seeing this. “No, no way, God, I’m sorry Terrence. I didn’t mean any of this to happen.”

  Terrence leaned back and opened his coat. “My body is bursting at the seams, Dan. I’m too small for the master. He needs a bigger body. Oh god, you have no idea how much pain I am in.” Terrence grabbed the banister. “I want him to leave me right now, that way, at least I’ll have rest.”

  His taut skin, stretched tight over bulging muscle and bone, started to split. Pale yellow, foul smelling glutinous fluid seeped out of the seams and dripped onto the carpet, eating into the weave like strong acid.

  “Oh no!” Terrence screeched, “He’s waking up, he knows I’ve disobeyed his commands.”

  Dan watched in horror as Terrence’s body continued to inflate while he howled in agony. He slammed his arm over his face as the lad’s body detonated, spraying Dan in wet lumps of scarlet gore.

  He yelped when he felt something touch his foot. Dan opened his eyes and looked in astonishment at his hands; he wiped his fingers down the side of his face. What the fuck had just happened? Where was Terrence and why was he now clean? There was no evidence that Terrence had been in the house at all.

  His mum and dad stood in front of him. They held each other’s hands. Dan then saw Alison standing at the bottom of the stairs looking up at the three of them.

  “I think we need to talk, son,” said his dad.

  Dan slowly nodded, seeing the same haunted expression on both his parent’s faces. He wondered where his sister was.

  Chapter Ten

  He didn’t like any of this; the woods should not be so quiet. Ethan looked up through the tree canopy, trying to see any bird activity. It unnerved him to feel so alone in here. Despite hunting and trapping some of the wildlife, Ethan still believed that he felt a link to the animals. Unlike the rest of those retards in the village, Ethan was at one with nature, he respected his environment.

  Nothing had moved, save for the small branches and leaves, swaying in the breeze, ever since Ethan had stepped back into the only place in the village where he felt comfortable. He passed one of the picnic tables, meaning to venture towards his domain, he turned, hurried back over to the table and sat down, staring along the gravel footpath. This area of woodland now felt as empty as his normal haunts. He’d seen nobody on his way to the woods and so far not one other person passed him in here.

  “There’s no squirrels around,” he said.

  Ethan had not mentioned anything about the events of last night to another soul. Who the fuck would believe him anyway? After his lucky escape from whatever the fuck had chased him, Ethan had taken the precaution of locking himself in his bedroom for the rest of the night. He had only sneaked back downstairs to raid the fridge when he was sure that his parents had finally gone to bed.

  His mum and dad had kept him awake for a good few hours with their rowing. That was unusual; Ethan hadn’t heard them arguing for years. Through the bedroom door, he had managed to catch some of it. Apparently, his mum wanted them to move back to Manchester. Ethan was too stressed out with his own shit, to actually care as to why mum had a sudden change of heart. He always thought both his parents loved this quaint and pleasant little village.

  The picture of Samuel Lane knocking on their door, with naked lust in his eyes, all ready to molest his mum had ran through his mind whilst listening to the pair of them shouting at each other. It had occurred to Ethan that perhaps that bastard had indeed been to his house while he had been out. That idea had gone straight into the bin, if that had been the case then Ethan would have been sitting down there with them, with his dad demanding to know the reasons for his actions.

  His dad had always warned him that if Ethan even considered using his rifle on another human, no matter what the provocation, then his dad would be the one to call the police.

  “You’re such a fucking idiot,” he whispered. Ethan picked his pride and joy off the picnic table and wondered just how he’d live with himself if this was ever taken off him. It did feel more than strange to be sitting in such a public area, holding his rifle. Then again, nothing that had happened to him since yesterday felt remotely normal.

  “Come on, you coward. You know the real reason why you’re back in here.” Ethan jumped off the table. He placed the rifle back in its cover. It felt comfortable to have the weapon in his hands but he believed it would be next to useless against what had chased him last night.

  He pulled out his granddad’s bayonet. Ethan had stolen this wicked looking piece of hardware from out of his dad’s private chest that he stored up in the attic, three years ago. Ethan hadn’t thought that he’d miss it. His dad hadn’t been up there in years.

  It had taken Ethan a good few weeks to fashion a sturdy handle to compliment the blade, he had no wish to sully the superb design with a sawn off broom handle and a load of masking tape. Just like the animals he killed, Ethan knew that he had to respect his dead grandfather.

  “I know you would have approved of what I did to your war trophy, granddad.” He drew the blade across the scarred table, cutting into somebody’s carved initials. His modified bayonet easily sliced through the wood. Ethan nodded to himself. He knew from experience that this could cut through flesh just as easily.

  It was time to get this over with. Ethan set off away from the picnic tables, towards where he killed that baby thing. He could feel his pounding heart, cracks and whistles went off in the back of his head. God, he was fucking terrified of finding out what had happened to the creature thing.

  Ethan had caught just a couple of hours of exhausted sleep in the early hours of this morning. After his parents had quietened down, and he’d filled his face with some left-over roast beef slices and some trifles, he spent the rest of the night trying to put the pieces together. He spent hours, trying to make sense of what he had seen and what had chased him in here.

  He might as well have just banged his head against a brick wall. Every conceivable explanation felt as though he had just lifted the plot out of some crappy horror movie. Ethan stopped a few feet away from that large flat stone. “I know what I fucking saw,” he snarled.

  The rock was right there, just where he had dropped it but there was no sign of what had chased after him. “I know what I fucking saw!” he repeated. Had the woodland night creatures made off with it? He sighed and forced his feet to move a little closer. As Ethan neared the stone, he did notice something not quite right. Some kind of black goo coated one side of some of the leaves close to the stone. It reminded Ethan of thick oil.

  Maybe the oil was the thing’s blood and the woodland creatures did indeed run off with the body. Ethan walked up to the stone, daring himself to lift it up. There was no way that he was going to put his fingers anywhere near that rock. Instead, he pushed the blade under, levered up the stone and used the tip of his boot to flip the stone onto its other side.

  Ethan threw his hand against his nose and jumped away as the rays of the morning sun ate into the flattened head, turning the bloodied flesh into bubbling blackened tar. He turned away and spewed up the remains of the scotch egg that he took out of the fridge before he left the house.

  He slowly turned back, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “It just fucking melted,” he gasped. Not a
ll those ridiculous theories that his over-tired mind came up with at four o’clock this morning seemed so stupid now.

  All that remained after the sun’s cleansing rays had scoured the area were a few bits of broken skull and some teeth lodged in the jaw. Natural curiosity overcame his fear when Ethan saw those wicked, pointed, ridged teeth. He crouched down and turned the bone over with the tip of his bayonet, watching the sunlight sear away the bits of meat still clinging to the jaw.

  Ethan did not want to think what would have happened to him if this mutilated baby had managed to sink those pointed fangs into his flesh. Despite its size, he was doubtful that he would have been able to survive the assault. “Would I have really died though?” he wondered.

  There was no way that the toddler could have survived that fall, that thing just had to be dead. He imagined that huge monstrous thing picking the kid out of his cot and slicing through his tender skin with a long fingernail before launching him out of that window.

  It had contaminated the kid. That evil fucker was out there, spreading this weird sickness to the rest of the villagers. Ethan flipped over another bone piece, leaning back as the sun boiled away some more flesh. It all made sense now, no wonder he had seen nobody about, they must be hiding from the light.

  He jumped to his feet. Why the fuck was he still here? Ethan had to get out of this bloody village before the sun set. The thought of all those locals behaving like that changed kid made his bowels loosen.

  Ethan gripped his bayonet and snarled, just wishing for one of them to emerge from behind a tree and go for him, he’d show them not to mess with a proper hunter. Ethan then looked at the blade and sighed. He must be missing part of his brain to think that this would stop one of them. What use was his bayonet against something that couldn’t die?

  For the second time in two days, Ethan cursed his decision never to buy into the modern obsession with mobile phones. He could have warned his parents’ right here and now. “If they would have even believed me,” he muttered.

  The ambient light under the trees dimmed as a dark cloud drifted in front of the sun. The desire to leave this ominous place increased as he heard the woods around him come alive with the sound of leaves rustling and twigs snapping.

  One by one, pairs of tiny crimson lights appeared in the undergrowth in front and to both sides of him. He didn’t need to turn to know they were behind him as well.

  “Oh fuck,” he stammered, the realisation hit him that these lights must belong to the creatures that dined on that changed toddler after he had ran off. “I am so dead!”

  A badger and two rats burst through the foliage directly in front of him. He slashed out blindly, catching one of the rats and slicing through the rodent’s body. The other two streaked towards his legs. The thought of those terrible teeth ripping through his flesh spurred him into action. Ethan leaped over the badger and squealed when the rat spun around and jumped at him. He jerked backwards and swung his leg, catching the rat in its underbelly. He felt the rat’s fragile bones snapping before it fell between two exposed tree roots, twitching its legs.

  Ethan’s sudden movements acted as a trigger for the rest of the animals to explode through the bushes. He scrambled up the banking aware that the masses swarm of tightly packed furry bodies would soon be crawling all over him. There was no way that he’d be able to outrun the fuckers.

  A gasp of naked relief escaped his mouth at the sight of that beautiful sun breaking through the cloud cover. He managed to reach the top of the hill, never before had he been so happy to see those picnic tables.

  He turned around; panting and saw that the animals had melted back into the wilderness. Ethan raced for the gate, desperate to get out of this fucking place before the sun went back behind the clouds.

  Chapter Eleven

  There wasn’t a chance that Georgina would admit this to William, but she was now so glad her husband brought her along. Staring at all those bones made her feel like a starving cat locked in a fish market. This is what she lived for. Georgina suppressed a grin. She hadn’t felt that joyous buzz ever since her first Egypt dig over three decades ago.

  As with all new discoveries, the uncovering of every new piece brought with it a torrent of questions. Until now, she had relished the prospect. Georgina turned over the femur. She took one more picture, before placing it back into its original position. So far, every question asked only brought on a flood of more bloody, seemingly unanswerable questions.

  Georgina got to her feet and brushed a little amount of dust off her canvas trousers. It bothered her that the whole chamber was remarkably clean. “William, you said you’d have an answer for me ten minutes ago.”

  Her husband stopped his hum in mid tune and peered over the top of his laptop’s screen. He frowned. “I think so, but I’m not happy with these results, despite running the test twice. I really should run it again before releasing the data. None of this is making any sense.”

  “Releasing the data?” she spluttered. “Did you even say that, William? I am your wife, not a lecture hall full of kids. Will you just spit it out, as for not making any sense, nothing about this discovery makes any sense.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to wait for a few more minutes? I really should run it again.”

  “Don’t you give me your over-cautious twaddle. I know how thorough you are, you wouldn’t have made a mistake once, never mind three times.”

  “If you insist,” he replied. “But I’m not sure that you’re going to like this, Georgina. Give or take a couple of centuries; the bones that I’ve examined are about a thousand years old.”

  Had she just heard that correctly? That meant that these skeletons weren’t even prehistoric. “That is surprising. Judging by the decay, I was hoping for the last ice age.”

  “I’m going to run the test again anyway but I don’t believe the findings will alter significantly. Georgina, there’s something else too. You were quite correct. Apart from the anomalies regarding the dental structure, these bones are most definitely human.”

  If they found a new species, the pair of them would be set up for life. The media would go crazy, at least for a few weeks. Even so, Georgina wasn’t about to give up her dream of going back to Egypt, not just yet. This was still a significant find and the strange teeth only deepened the mystery. The tabloids would just love that, she smiled to herself, especially if she showed some journalist the tooth she pulled out of that cat skull.

  “I’m sure the lab results will confirm my findings.” He took another look at the jawbone in his hand. “It is most curious.”

  “I can’t explain the teeth either.”

  “No, it’s not just that, Georgina,” he replied, shaking his head. William stood up and hurried over to the opening, he looked in both directions before turning around. “I know that I said that our greedy cavern owner had placed all the bones in here. Looking at the evidence, I no longer believe that it the case.” He held up his hand. “Yes, I know what I said about this opening and I still stand by that theory. Even, so, I still think that all these unfortunate souls died in here.”

  “I’m sorry; I can’t follow your thinking, William, where is the evidence to support this?”

  William’s face broke into a grin. “That’s because you haven’t noticed the markings yet. Also, because you assumed the bones were older than you thought, the paradox hasn’t hit you just yet.” He rushed over and leaned over the woman. He picked up a skull and dropped it into her hands. “It’s been picked clean. In fact, I’m willing to wager that there isn’t a scrap of flesh left of any of these bones.”

  She shrugged. “Why should that surprised you? According to your data, they are over a thousand years old. Time, moisture and animals would have removed all soft organic material.”

  “Not all of it,” he said, shaking his head. “Can you not see how clean the chamber is? Plus, I’ve not seen evidence of any animal intrusion. If the wildlife had broke into this chamber, they would have scattered t
hese bones throughout this chamber. I think that they ate each other. It is the only thing that does make sense.”

  She paused, thinking about what he’d just said. He was correct, at least about the animals. Georgina then chuckled to herself “Oh dear, you haven’t thought that theory through. You must be slipping. What about the last person, did he eat himself?” Georgina shone the torch beam on the skull and saw the deep grooves. William was right, she had seen marking like these on the other bones but none were as deep as the grooves in this skull. She frowned; it would take an animal with considerable bite strength to leave that mark.

  She sighed, yet more unanswered questions. She placed the torch on the floor while she put the skull back.

  “What is that?” asked her husband. He dropped to his knees, grabbed her torch and shone it further into the crushed up bones. “I think I can see something,” he groaned, pushing his arm through the bodies. “Got it!” he grinned, triumphantly. William pulled his arm clear and opened the palm of his hand to display a large golden coin. “I can’t believe how heavy it is.” He passed the coin to her and pushed the torch through a gap in the bones. “There’s more of them in there, Georgina, a lot more.” He jumped to his feet. Come on, let’s get the rest of the equipment.”

  She turned the heavy coin over in her hands, trying to work out the age. She had never seen anything like this before. The marksmanship in the design was far more advanced than anything she had seen before. “William, I don’t understand this.” She gave him back the coin. “This is modern, it must be, the technology to craft this did not exist a thousand years ago.”

  “I know,” he replied. “I noticed that as soon as I pulled it out. Granted, a highly skilled metal smith might have, over time, produced a single coin.” William looked back towards the pile of bones. “I’m willing to bet that this coin isn’t unique.” He hurried over to the opening. “Come on, Georgina, let’s see what else we can find buried under all those bones.”