by Mark Cassell
Soon he walked parallel with the trees and then with a stream that curled into the woodland. The darker sky and those looming trees pressed in.
His hands, even itchier now, fumbled open the map. It was as though he’d rammed them into nettles, elbow-deep among stingers. While scrutinising the route ahead, he guzzled water. And spat it out. Bitter, disgusting. It dribbled over his lips. He hurled the bottle down and water gurgled. With a yell that shocked him, he booted the bottle. Tangled branches swallowed it in a murky spray.
“What the hell—”
He yanked out his phone: still no signal.
Gripping the phone in his fist, it felt warm, getting warmer by the second. A sticky mess oozed between his fingers. The battery had leaked? Seriously? He rammed the phone into a pocket.
“You have got to be kidding!” His voice bounced off the trees and came back deadened. He wiped sticky fingers on his jacket. At least the compass still worked. For now. Thinking that, he knew he’d be screwed if the needle seized.
Shadows thickened, pulling darkness closer, and he slowed his pace. He dragged his hand, burning, from forehead to chin. Hungry, thirsty. His hands shook. A series of scars crisscrossed his knuckles. Even as he watched they stitched across his fingers as though a thousand invisible razorblades danced across his flesh, yet immediately healed. That now-familiar burning sensation rushed over him, the heat surging into his head. It had to be some kind of allergy. He saw what they actually were: not just lines, but arrows.
“What—” The word tumbled over dry lips.
Arrows scratched, etched into his skin. Pointing… They pointed in the opposite direction: south. And when he moved his arms more scars formed in his flesh…again, pointing down towards the tree line, and the stream.
His scalp itched. He clawed at his hair and grunted. In jerking, frantic movements he slung his bag to the ground and yanked off his jacket, then his jumper, unconcerned as the clothes caught on brambles. He barely felt the cold as he tugged his T-shirt over his head.
Scars webbed his skin, up his arms and across his chest, his stomach. Bright white and stark in the failing light. Dozens—hundreds—of arrows glistened. Burning agony.
His scream echoed once. Again, a dead sound.
He stepped towards the field, in the direction of the hill. Surely there would be signal up there and then could call emergency services. Sod Carl and the restaurant, he needed medical attention. Now.
And he remembered the battery had leaked. His heart plummeted.
Each time he stepped towards the stile another arrow cut into his forearm, others on his biceps. As they appeared, he hissed, cold air rushing between clenched teeth.
“Shit! Help me! Someone! Please!”
Each arrow pointed towards the trees, and when he staggered and flailed his arms, the arrows moved to point back at them once again. And again.
The sound of water echoed. Beckoned.
He dropped to his knees, then collapsed into an awkward sitting position. He waved his arms before tear-streaked eyes. Agony seethed across his flesh as more arrows tore into his forearms. Still no blood, but the pain… He kicked at a lone fence post, and shuffled through the grass and mud.
His breath sharp in his lungs, he pushed up onto unsteady feet. His boots felt miles away as he dragged them through clinging mud. Darkness pressed in. His head throbbed.
And his flesh burned with agony.
With eyes half-closed he followed the sound of water.
The stream widened into a shallow pool to trickle between mossy bulks of rock. Beyond this was the pond, dark, uninviting. Little of the remaining daylight penetrated the patchwork of leaves overhead.
He scrubbed and scratched at his hands, wringing them together. They now bled. Slick. Pieces of his flesh caught beneath his fingernails in dark curls.
“God,” he pleaded, “help me.”
He leapt towards the rocks, smacked into one, and crouched at the water’s edge, arms outstretched. Cold, soothing water splashed. Perhaps he laughed. From behind, trees groaned. Something snapped—cracked and echoed. A branch crashed to the ground in an eruption of leaves.
Robert’s leg shot sideways and he sloshed into the water, instantly soaked. Freezing.
The ground heaved and he rolled over, gasping. His hands slapped the water, but the relief…oh, the relief was wonderful. Sitting in the water with knees up near his elbows, he waved his hands beneath the surface. Cold, welcoming. He rubbed his torso and arms, and felt the lumps and ridges of a thousand scars.
His vision blurred. Then sharpened.
On the other side of the pond, the rocks and tree trunks shimmered. The darkness shifted and seemed to toy with his perception. Shadows closed in as though night suddenly fell. They squeezed his view across the mud and the water. The shadows churned. In teasing wisps they swept up, down, left, right, as though trying to grasp something. No, not grasp something, become something.
An outline of a figure, eight, nine, ten feet tall. The silhouette glinted like a reflection in broken glass. With muscular arms and legs, its slightly-hunched form held firm a wide head that sported three jagged horns. Shadows curled from them, and traceries of flame spat and crackled.
The stink of smoke, heavy vegetation, and something else, cloying, something dead, scratched his throat and stung his nostrils. He coughed.
The thing towered over the bank, red eyes glowing through the swirling shadows.
Silence and…
Fence posts splintered. Barbed wire whipped the air, whistling, and wrapped around the creature’s limbs. The barbs tore into its flesh, black blood oozing. The shadows retreated and it stepped forward. Glowing scars criss-crossed its chest and abdomen, sparking as though each leaked an inner fire. It raised an arm, a fist that unfurled, palm up. Offering…
Scars covered its palm.
Robert’s body ached, the heat still rushing over him. In his head he screamed, in his head he ran…but the mud sucked at him, the water froze him.
Carmine eyes burned from the creature’s bulbous head.
Trees creaked, more wire whipped the air, more fence posts snapped as the shadows behind this thing gaped wider.
A heavy darkness, smothering shadows, rushed outwards like a tsunami and washed over Robert. Heat without agony. And for that, he was thankful. His flesh entwined with the darkness, and shadowy fibres sliced into his arms and body and face. Curls of his skin interlinked with the shadows as they raged around the creature.
Warmth bathed him, and the darkness soothed him.
Other forms shimmered and shifted in the darkness, and he knew they were like him; those lost and forgotten over centuries, summoned as fuel to an ultimate goal. He sank into their phantom arms, the broiling darkness enveloping him.
The creature’s form snatched more branches and rock and rusted wire. As the shadows stitched to embrace Robert, he sensed elation. The creature, this Being, would finally tread the Earth after a millennia of imprisonment.
RED, WHITE AND BLACK
Judy only knew his first name: Charlie. And he was dead.
He wore the same white clothes as her. Itchy and loose. White sneakers, too. Or trainers, as they said here in England. Only his, toes down over the bed, were spattered with blood. So much red in contrast to the glaring walls. Red, white…and black. A tar-like substance clung to the bed linen and spotted his clothes, merging with the blood. Clumps of that dark filth streaked the wall as though it had grown from the plaster.
The medication, the drugs, whatever they’d given her, still clogged her brain, and even a cry for help seemed beyond her.
She stepped back and her ass smacked the door frame. A lump filled her throat. She swallowed and breathed. She’d become accustomed to the institute’s fresh paint smell but now the coppery stink of blood overpowered it—and also something like wet foliage or soggy vegetables.
The sheets were twisted around his body, his face pressed into the pillow. That black stuff streaked his neck and
cheek. Whatever it was, it looked like it had suffocated him. His hands were dead claws. His arms, hairy and bloodied. Welts and blood-bruises curled around his forearm.
Just like her own.
She brushed her knuckles down her arm, over those peculiar welts and grazes. Still sore, and still she couldn’t recall how she’d gotten them. Similar to Charlie’s, yet showed no sign of any black infection. Was this going to happen to her?
Earlier at dinner, he’d invited her to his room saying he had something for her to read—which could mean any number of things. However, she saw a newspaper heaped beside the bed and had no doubt that was it. The front page pictured a man wearing sunglasses, his face turned to the headline: DEATH OF A HERO. Above that it said, John Lennon Shot Dead in New York.
She snatched it up and stared at the portrait photo of her favourite Beatle. He wore a blazer, a shirt, and a loose necktie, and he looked smooth in those sunglasses. Shot dead? Her hands curled into fists and the paper crumpled. She tore her gaze from the newspaper, back to Charlie. The dark filth also caked his hair.
At least she couldn’t see his face.
Her cheeks were warming, her breath quickening. Again, her thoughts dragged.
The last time she’d seen him alive, he had a spoon of pudding in his mouth and waved at her across the canteen. Her head ached and she’d needed to lay down. Everyone had responded differently, and she guessed that was the nature of a clinical trial. The doctors told them they’d be monitored over the next several weeks. She looked at the black muck, the way it oozed from his wounds. Whatever this was, it was one hell of a side effect. Perhaps other candidates had also died. She had to find someone, tell someone. She twisted the newspaper in her hands and the welts on her forearm appeared to wriggle—her vision pulsing like it had during dinner.
She had to get a grip on herself.
Charlie was dead. Lennon, too. This was a sick world she lived in. Lennon, murdered in NYC. Her home, her city. The ceiling seemed to press down, lowering until it almost touched her scalp, the main house above pressing her into the earth. The thought of being in Britain—in the Garden of England, no less—felt truly absurd at that moment.
The newspaper slipped from her hands and fell with a slap. She blinked, focused, and her sneakers squeaked as she lurched into the corridor.
She called: “Help! Anyone? Help!”
Her voice shot along the strip lights and bounced back. Then silence.
The floor tiles sucked her feet and she staggered onward. She passed another room and a peek revealed a kaleidoscope of red, white, and black. She wasn’t surprised. Her ill-fitting clothes flapped as her pace quickened. More rooms, each no different from Charlie’s. Her head throbbed with every footfall. Just how long until this caught up with her?
She shouted, “Hello?”
Again, silence.
“Hell—”
From somewhere a burst of static answered. The sound crackled and faded.
An empty corridor led to another stretch of open doors, every one revealing more death. And that black infection. The trial had clearly gone wrong.
Around a corner, along another corridor, Judy reached an area she’d often thought of as a reception. Usually there’d be a nurse or an orderly busying around. She approached the glass-fronted office—a smear of pink and grey misted the cracked glass.
Inside, a computer terminal with bulky casing took up most of the desk. A telephone, receiver missing, sat dwarfed by a stack of manila files. The coiled wire draped across a lady’s wrist. One blue fingernail pointed in accusation at a black smudge on the desk.
An earthy stink filled Judy’s nostrils. She held her breath and took another step forward.
Slumped in a swivel chair was the nurse, Mary. Or May. Judy almost felt guilty in forgetting and refused to get close enough to read her name tag. Those familiar shades of gore covered the woman’s uniform. Her neck stretched, head back, hair dangling to the tiles. Her white hat rested in a red pool. That black matter splayed across the tiles.
Perhaps this had nothing to do with the trials and was instead some kind of outbreak, some fatal disease.
A sound—rustling?—echoed from further down the corridor. Another survivor? Thank God.
Her vision warped and she stumbled, backing out of the office.
A rustling, shuffling sound, again and…
“Have you seen Kat?” A man’s voice erupted from behind her and she spun and almost collapsed into his arms.
Parker.
His eyes, piercing, blue. His hair, ruffled. Sweat beaded his forehead. “Judy. Where is Kat?”
Often this doctor—she’d assumed he was one of the important doctors behind these trials—would bring his daughter in. A cute child, about four or five years old with flaming hair and inquisitive eyes. Judy focused on the room beyond him. Colouring books scattered the floor and crayons were crushed into the tiles like rainbow splinters.
“Have you seen her?” He grabbed Judy’s shoulders. Along his forearm, running parallel with his veins were familiar black marks. No red welts though. He released her and stepped back. He shouted, “Kat!”
Shaking her head sent silver spots darting across her vision. She straightened her back. “What’s happened here?”
“We have to find Kat.”
“Yes. I’ll help. Why is everyone—”
“Dead?”
She nodded. More silver spots.
“We must find Kat.” He charged towards the double doors. With palms flat, he shoved them wide and disappeared into the next room.
Judy followed. It was kind of like a classroom, where she and perhaps a dozen others sat when first introduced to the trial ahead. She’d sat at the back next to Charlie—dead!—whom at the time she’d not known. They were all there for the same reason: money. Judy recognised an eagerness in everyone’s eyes, and wondered if she looked the same. Clinical trials offered a lot of money these days. Apparently it had something to do with the patients already here at the institute but although Parker gave them a tour, they weren’t allowed to see any patients. Prohibited access, he’d said and added that they were expanding departments.
Across the room, Parker yanked open a door to a stationery cupboard. Swinging wide, the handle thumped the wall. He hardly resembled the confident doctor who’d once stood before them, smiling and concluding that most of the underground sprawl here was an immense building project.
Judy felt useless, her mind reeling. This was all like a bad trip, feeling just as she had last year. Unlike some of her friends who spiralled into the madness of drug abuse, she’d been lucky to escape her teens. This had been the beginning of a new life for her. At least, that was the intention.
Parker barged past her and out of the room. “Help me.”
She pressed her palms to her temples and followed. “Sorry.”
In the corridor, his mouth turned down at the corners, he shouted, “Kat!”
Music crackled from somewhere like a radio had been switched on. It came in faint waves. Judy couldn’t make out the tune.
Parker frowned and headed for an archway, into another corridor. “Kat?”
His pounding footfalls echoed and Judy staggered after him. Her stomach somersaulted but at least her vision was sharpening. Into the corridor, those strip lights a harsh glare, she squinted. Parker had vanished. Three doors lined a wall. The paint smell filled her nostrils and somehow cleansed her mind. Only a fraction.
A door creaked. She rushed for it and pushed it open. Her vision blurred. The wood was cold—even that seemed to clear her head a little more.
Crouched between filing cabinets, hugging his red-haired daughter, was Parker. He said her name over and over. Her arms wrapped around his neck and in a tiny fist a crayon poked between her fingers. A black one.
In a muffled voice, she said, “Daddy, where is everybody?”
He didn’t reply, only squeezed her.
High in the corner of the room more of the black filth peppered
the walls and ceiling, resembling damp spores. The house above was old so she guessed the foundations would be just as old. Surely where they were expanding the underground part of the institute, damp spores wouldn’t set in so soon. In truth, she had no idea.
Parker stood, lifting Kat into his arms. His smile said everything.
Kat’s eyes were wide and round. She still clutched the crayon. “Hello,” she said to Judy.
“Hi.” Judy held the door open for them.
“Right,” Parker said, his voice stronger than before. “Let’s get out.”
Her brain still felt sluggish. “What’s going on?”
“I have no idea.”
“But—”
He led them back to the office, and made sure to face Kat away from the dead nurse. This time, Judy was close enough to read the name tag: Mary. The black stuff coated most of it, and appeared to have melted the plastic.
Snatching the telephone, Parker prodded the buttons. After a moment’s pause, he said, “Dead.”
Judy again glanced at Mary.
Parker scratched his forearm. “We must assume it’s taken everyone else.”
“Why not us?”
He pulled Kat into his arms. His eyes seemed to shrink and he looked down. “Come on.”
They ran through a set of double doors, passing through several empty rooms. Beneath an archway, they entered a room unfamiliar to Judy. She assumed this was one of the prohibited areas.
Hypodermic needles lay scattered on the floor. Again, black marks streaked the tiles. Further back, the strip lights bathed a row of gurneys, the linen seemed to glow. One was occupied by a man, naked from the waist up and secured by wide leather straps. That black matter caked half his torso. His eyes bulged and blood covered his shaven head and smeared his cheek. His lip flopped between clenched teeth from where he’d bitten it off. Black filth glistened, protruding through torn flesh and broken bone like the stuff had risen from his throat and busted through his jaw. Even now, it dribbled from between bone splinters and bubbled onto the mattress. A tooth bounced and tittered across the tiles leaving bloody splashes.