by James King
The thing tore backward. Chris’s head was still clamped within its sucking hole, so the head came with it. Chris’s body, on the other hand, remained where the thing had it pinned on the ground, and so, in a ripe, ripping, and blood flying explosion of viscera, both body and head parted company. And for a moment the thing merely crouched there in the barley, waving its head from one side to the next, eyes rolling, a low and ecstatic moaning emanating from deep within its chest. And the head that was still clamped in its jaws spurted its juices to drench the yellow summer corn.
Six
Matt Dixon fled, screaming. He had no idea where he was, where he was heading, or, in the depths of his shock and his horror, who he was. He only knew that he must run - away from the cornfield, away from the crashed and burning helicopter, and away from the scorched and impossible horror that he had seen crawl out of the helicopter’s flames. That horror had burned itself into Matt’s memory and perception as surely as if he, too, had been burned by the flames. As he ran, he saw images before his eyes of burning men who still lived, of lips that had been burned away to reveal grinning skeleton teeth, of eyeholes that wept night black tears. He felt like prey, fleeing before the fangs of a hunter, and all calmness and rationality was gone from his mind.
He recalled running through the cornfield, wading through the barley with a terrible nightmare slowness while the wet sounds of gibbering eagerness pursued him. He remembered at last breaking free of the barley, the blessed relief of being able to flee across open ground. Then he had left the field, tumbling either over or through a hedge, and then through an area of woodland: dodging trees, striking harsh bark, tripping over knotted roots, feeling the pain of grazed flesh and the light tickle of blood as it ran across his skin. He dimly remembered that he had a car; he remembered leaving it at the side of the road, its indicator ticking, probably unlocked. Where the car was now, he didn’t know: in his madness and in his terror he had lost all sense of direction. He supposed that he ought to pause, look around him, take stock of his surroundings, and try to find his car. But the need to flee still possessed him, burning through him rampant like a forest fire, and his body had no choice but to do what instinct demanded.
At last he broke out of the trees, and found himself in an area of open land, the ground consisting mainly of weeds and stones. Ahead of him loomed what looked like an iron fence, about twice as tall as Matt, ornately wrought, its rungs close together and topped with spikes. In his disorientation, Matt had no idea what this fence was, but he headed for it anyway. He could see that there was a gap in the fence just ahead of him: a gate swung open, perhaps carelessly left unlatched. He made for that opening, feeling, however illogically, that he would be safer if only he was the other side of the barrier.
He arrived at the gateway and plunged through, running fast, running pell-mell. The moment that he was through the gate, his foot caught something – a stone, a root, a clump of grass, he would never know – and he lost balance, fell forward, arms pin-wheeling in a desperate bid for balance that never came. He crashed to the ground, the grass and soil rushing up to greet him in a harsh embrace, while his head hit something harder yet. A rock, a stone, a lump of concrete, something sharp and savage, and agony exploded across his forehead.
Matt tumbled to one side, away from whatever his head had struck, and at last came to rest. His chest gasped for breath, his limbs sprawled and burning from their exertion, while, for a moment, his perception faded in and out of consciousness, flirting with oblivion. Matt had always thought that the saying “seeing stars” was nothing more than a fanciful turn of phrase – but now he realised that it was true. He could see the stars now, whole galaxies of them swirling, spiralling, gyrating and twinkling before his darkened vision. They were oddly beautiful, caressing, reassuring, soothing, and for one moment Matt wondered, in a kind of detached, disinterested, almost scientific way – whether he was actually dying.
The moment passed. The stars receded. His vision dimmed for a moment – and perhaps he did lose consciousness for some unknown length of time. But at last consciousness returned, and with it daylight, and perception, and understanding, and a vast burning pain, centred mostly on his forehead.
Slowly, Matt tried to move. Pain flared through his body, so he paused a moment, then tried again. Suddenly, unbidden, like some lunatic jack-in-the-box, the memory of what he had seen in the cornfield sprang back into his memory, and with it a sickly burn of adrenalin. He had to move. He had to get out of here. The burned men were coming for him like monsters out of a child’s nightmare, and he had to get away.
Gradually, shuddering and agonised, Matt made his way up onto his hands and knees. He paused for a moment as a giant wrack of nausea worked its way through him. Then the nausea subsided, and he slowly sat back on his haunches, not yet ready to make the full journey all the way up onto his feet, and glanced about him. The first thing that he saw was a large rectangular rock or stone sticking for perhaps the height of a meter up from the ground. That was clearly what he had hit his head on. He could even see a small smear of blood at the lower left hand corner of the stone. He glanced about himself, at the small area of grassy land that was encircled by the iron fence. More of these stones protruded from the ground, some larger, some smaller, but all bearing more or less the same message.
Matt couldn’t help but utter a low, dark laugh. He knew where he was now. And he knew what he had hit his head on. He looked back at the stone and, now that his vision had refocused, he found that he could read what had been carved into its surface:
CHARLES WILCOX
1885 – 1935
MAY HE REST IN PEACE
Matt laughed again. Sorry, Mr Wilcox, didn’t mean to head butt your grave stone. Hope I didn’t disturb you. Hope you’re still resting in peace...
And then Matt thought once more about the things in the cornfield, and his laughter died.
Shakily, he got to his feet. He tottered for a moment, righted himself, and then found he was able to stand well enough. He put a hand to his forehead, winced with a sudden sharp pain, and his fingers came away reddened with blood. Shit, he’d probably have to get that seen to; head injuries were never good news. He didn’t feel particularly bad now that the worse of the shock had worn off, but you could never be too careful. Also, he suddenly remembered, he’d been on his way to work when all this kicked off. Christ, what time was it now? He didn’t wear a wrist watch, but it was probably late. They’d be wondering where he was. They were busy at work at the moment too, new responsibilities being taken on, heavy workloads, they last thing they needed was him not turning up, and then, if he didn’t turn up they might ring his home, and his mum would take the call, say that he wasn’t there, and then she’d worry, and...
...and this carousel of mundane thoughts, concerns, and preoccupations was still turning in his mind – hurrying, indeed, toward a lunatic speed – when Matt felt the movement on his shoe.
His thoughts stopped turning, and he was snapped back into the reality of the moment. He glanced downward and there, on the polished, shiny top of one shoe was... something... black, fluid, coiling, like some large and singularly poisonous slug writhing across the expensive leather. Matt shrieked, kicking out his foot, trying to dislodge the thing, whatever it was. And what the fuck was it anyway? Not really a slug, or a worm, or any creepy crawly of that nature. It was too – well – wet for that, too insubstantial, too viscous. Almost like liquid: tar or ink or oil or –
- and then he remembered: the black liquid that he had seen when he’d been in the cornfield, the liquid that had seemed to leak outward from the wrecked helicopter. But it hadn’t been oil though, or tar, or ink for that matter. It had been a different substance entirely. It had poured from one of the dead men’s eyes, (and yes, he could admit to that now, as he stood here in this cemetery, he could admit that they were dead men, living but dead, walking but dead, hungry and grinning and vicious but dead), poured from the dead man’s eyes like midnight tears
, and...
...and the black substance had poured outward through the barley, toward him, coating his shoes in its slick unnatural essence.
And now, Matt screaming, kicking, revolted, maddened anew by this fresh invasion.
At last the glutinous mass flopped off his shoe, splatting onto the stone and grass of the cemetery ground. As he watched, it spilled across the ground, dispersing like a black and evil mercury. It seethed into the earth, fizzing, smoking, somehow eager, and for a moment, the substance seemed to describe a form on the cemetery: a kind of humanoid shape, as though it was mocking that which lay beneath. And then the substance was gone. Just a brief waft of black smoke above the ground – smoke that was reminiscent of the mushroom cloud that had risen above the burning helicopter – that dispersed into the air, upward, into the sky, away. Then stillness and silence save for the breathing of the wind in the nearby trees, a kind of counterfeit peace.
Matt’s sickened kicking frenzy was now over. Instead he stood, silent, still, bloodied head bowed, as though the late Charles Wilcox had been known to him and he was paying his respects. Perhaps it was the head injury having its way once again, but Matt felt strangely dazed, strangely silenced, strangely stilled. His breathing slowed, his blood seemed to cool in his veins, his very heart seemed to lessen its beats per minute, as though all was slowing toward a perfect rest. A deep and awful coldness settled into the meat of his body: his flesh, his blood, his bone, the jelly of his brain, as though he had been inserted in the refrigeration unit of a morgue. His perception seemed to darken, the sunlight becoming a strange green tinge, the trees about becoming darkened, louring monsters that bended forward to whisper hideous secrets, the very stones on the ground seemed sharply etched as though they were not stones at all but little knives that sheared upward, eager for his destruction. He could a hear a metallic creak come from somewhere, and knew that it was the fence that encircled this yard of bones, the fence coming alive, shambling forward, imbued with a hideous creaking metallic life that was eager for sustaining blood. A vile sense of unreality washed through him, as though he had sampled the most potent and evil curare and the secrets of a malign and hostile universe were being thrown before his cooling perception. And still his body cooled until he was shivering, sickened, as though from a malarial onset, as though some dreadful virus that was perhaps typhus or cholera or bubonic plague, or Ebola was consuming his body, burning through his cells, twisting his being toward the last nauseous contortions before the throes of death.
And then, the soil of Charles Wilcox’s grave stirred.
Just a tiny movement at first: a trickle of soil, a stone dislodged and rolling, the grass stirring faintly, as though stroked by an unnatural breeze. But these tiny movements increased, became more pronounced, more violent, until the grave earth was a churning, boiling horror, the soil becoming slicked and muddied, black slime bubbling upward, noxious gasses exploding, offering the early morning air their graveyard bouquet. Matt just stood there, gazing down, chilled, sickened, hypnotised before the onset of yet another ferocious impossibility.
Then, a hand burst through the churning earth.
The year nineteen thirty five was a long time ago, and yet the hand was strangely well preserved. It was still coated in the grey remnants of its flesh, and that flesh looked spongy, shrivelled, as though its owner had spent too long in the bath. The flesh was torn in many places, and Matt could see the bone beneath, dirty white, chipped, gnawed. He could even see a ring glinting on one finger, dirt encrusted but expensive looking, perhaps a wedding ring committed to the darkness of the grave along with the finger that wore it by a grieving wife, offering death the strange sacrifice that her own heart demanded. Then, following the hand, an arm, dressed in the black and ragged sleeve of a formal suit, perhaps a best suit, perhaps a dinner jacket, perhaps a personal garment, or perhaps something that had been selected by the undertaker. It was well preserved. The coffin had clearly been a good quality one.
And now, here came the rest of the body.
Rising from the cemetery earth, the boiling black slime dripping from its form which a moment ago it had seemed to mock. The head at last, liberated from the soil, the eyes long gone, the mouth a grinning xylophone of dead teeth, the nose a dribbling orifice, the hair light wisps atop of the shrivelled skull, and what flesh that remained was green, rotten, sloughing, but still... nineteen thirty five was a long time ago. It was well preserved. And, as Matt watched, a ball of maggots writhed out of the left eyehole, startled by this sudden regeneration, surprised that the brain that they fed on now sought to function.
The corpse sat up, threw its head back, the jaws creaked open, and it uttered a long, low, and mournful howl such as the damned in hell might utter. The sound of it rose high into the summer sky, lupine, demented, and full of bloody hunger. Then the head lowered, and the things face gazed directly at Matt. The eyes were long gone, and yet somehow it still saw, smelled, sensed the living flesh that stood not five meters from it - flesh that it would seek to rend in its dead fangs. Suddenly, eagerly, with a horrible speed and energy, the thing began to scramble out of its grave.
More movement, to the right, to the left, all about him. Matt glanced this way and that, seemingly shaken out of the weird torpor that had overtaken him. More denizens of the cemetery were rising from the earth. Here a woman, long buried in a flowing ball gown that was now mottled with deep layers of mould, about her neck was an expensive-looking necklace of pearls that now hung against her breast like dead teeth. Her head was a grinning skull and worms crawled in her hair. There another man, a fresher corpse than the other two, his skin pale but smooth and whole. His face, however, hung askew, as though the mind beyond it had gone entirely, and the eyeballs – that were just beginning to liquefy – stared wide and mad. His mouth fell open, and a huge centipede writhed out, its legs gyrating across the man’s pallid flesh, crawling across his throat and then down beneath his shirt to join other things that writhed and squirmed there. And here, lurching from behind another tomb stone, a tiny corpse, a child, its head a clean skull pale and glowing in the summer sun, and it held its tiny arms out toward him, beseeching, pleading, its small jaw opening and closing as though to ask why – why had it been awakened from its long sad sleep? The front of its torso was open, and rotting offal hung from it like some filthy party streamer.
And over all, above all, lifting into the high clear day, was the sound of moaning, howling, baying, as from a hungry pack of wolves, gathering to hunt down their prey.
And, for a second time that day, and not for the last, Matt Dixon was fleeing, running, sprinting, screaming into warm summer air, while the light, thin steps of nightmare pursued him.
Seven
Slowly, the small market town of Alchester awoke from the dark slumber of the summer night. Curtains were opened, people stepped out of doors and breathed in the fresh morning air, delivery lorries drew up in front of shops and deposited their wares: meat, groceries, newspapers, wine, beer, and cigarettes. Commerce began its brisk awakening as shop doors were unlocked, awnings assembled, tables and chairs brought out onto pavements in front of cafe doors, and cars gathered in supermarket forecourts. The rush hour mounted, minute by minute, in Alchester’s small and twisting one way system – never built for cars – and brake lights glowed and traffic lights changed, and horns sounded as temperatures rose and tempers frayed. School doors were thrown open for the last time – it was the last day of the summer term today – and children, happy in that knowledge, came to school dressed in their own bright clothes, with large plastic toys clutched in their arms instead of school books. The last day of term would be one of play and happiness instead of lessons, drudgery, and a watched wall clock that never seemed to move. Today was the height of summer happiness.
And so, slowly, but with gathering speed, the town of Alchester awoke, and the bell in the town clock tower boldly tolled the hour of nine, as though to confirm that the day had indeed begun.
A
nd the bright summer sun burned down over all.
And the smoke from the black mushroom cloud dispersed over the town like a shroud.
The smoke, and the seething virus that it contained.
* * *
Becky Chandler stepped out of the front door of Chandler’s Blooms, and carefully placed the box of chrysanthemums on the bench by the window. For a moment, she paused, and carefully arranged the flowers so that they would appear to their best advantage. Then she glanced around at the other bunches of arranged flowers that she had placed around the front of the shop. She smiled, and offered the flowers a small nod. They looked good – bright, colourful, and abundant. Roses, gladioli, clematis, foxgloves, poppies, daffodils, and forget-me-nots... not all in season, many propagated in commercial greenhouses rather than grown in their natural earth and season, but all none the less looking verdant and sweet – hopefully eye catching to any customer that might pass this way.
And boy, did she need to catch some customer’s eyes...
Sighing, Becky turned to a nearby bunch of roses. She began to arrange them, as she had done with the clematis a moment ago, to lose herself in their crimson beauty, but found herself unable to forget the shadow that hung over her. Chandler’s Blooms had not been doing well financially for some time now, the bills had been mounting, the invoices had been going unpaid, and the bank statements had had more red ink on them than black. Barring miracles, it was only a matter of time, she supposed, before the inevitable happened and she would have to sell up. Ah well, she supposed that she had been warned about the dangers of the business venture, by Nick, her ex-boyfriend. That shop of yours is right on the outskirts of the town, Nick had said, how many customers do you think you’re going to get coming that way? You need to be in the town centre to even stand a chance...