by Mark Cassell
He blinked and regained focus.
They were due at his parents’ house in an hour. Finally they’d meet Rachel. But he couldn’t let them see her like this. No choice now but to cancel. Mum especially would be disappointed.
He stepped away. Beneath his boots, soggy paper split. Another step and he kicked chips and fish and strips of batter. Coughing, he went indoors and prodded the light switch. Darkness stole Rachel away. He slid a hand into a pocket and removed his mobile. His thumb twitched as if in defiance when he brought up his parents’ number. Yeah, Mum was going to be pissed.
Dad answered—thank God—and Derek gave his excuses. Ill, he explained, Rachel had come down with something. Which in truth wasn’t a lie.
The rest of the evening he spent alone on the sofa, staring into the TV. The images flashed across the screen. Motion, colours, sound; nothing made sense. He didn’t go into the garden again and eventually fell asleep.
Come morning, forcing himself outside, Derek squinted into a reluctant sunshine. It was as though the sun refused to highlight the black fungus that bulged from the middle of the empty pool. Crawling vines with floppy sacks like deflated footballs clung to the filthy paving. Several tiles were cracked, and shards littered the patio. Rachel sat with the pool’s gaping emptiness before her as she had the previous night. Dark and thorny vines still tangled with her leg. Those strange black sacks pulsed. Like they breathed. She didn’t move as he came to stand beside her. The stink of rotted vegetation stung his nostrils.
He placed a hand on her shoulder—slick, warm.
“Rachel?”
Still no response.
The vines, those creepers, had fused with her leg and even now writhed. Where they speared her skin pus oozed, dribbled. Raw, angry. Her head hung, just a dome of veins and festering sores, and her hair had fallen out.
His hand slipped from her shoulder and swung by his side. Indentations remained from where he’d gripped her. The veins beneath rippled and the skin smoothed out. A small voice, muffled yet screaming at the back of his mind, told him this was an infection, and to get out of there, to run, run far away…and why the fuck wasn’t he running? But he didn’t understand that need, couldn’t run, hide. He couldn’t leave her. Neither could he allow Mum to see her like this. Yesterday Dad suggested should Rachel feel any better, the pair could instead come over tonight. No chance.
The vines squirmed, rasping. Black stuff oozed.
Derek called work and said he was sick. And he probably was. He spent the day watching nothing on TV and neglecting his rumbling stomach. Neglecting Rachel, too.
Late afternoon, something crashed outside.
His vision dragged across the room, colours blurring. He stood, giddy. It took several seconds for his brain to catch up. What was wrong with him? He felt hung-over. Finally his head cleared and he ran through the house, into the kitchen. His shoulder slammed the half-open patio door and he almost slipped on the wet ground—it had rained during the day. Puddles merged with creepers that were now as fat as his thigh.
Rachel…
Her dress was now a darker green, blending into puffy flesh. It was difficult to tell where she ended and the fabric began. The grey vines almost entirely covered her leg and blended with a trunk of a root that disappeared into the heaving mass in the pool. The crash, Derek could only assume, had been the side of the pool collapsing to make way for more bulging sacks. Cracked tiles and earth cradled the bulbous hulk.
An electronic warble, ringing, tore into the garden. It sounded strange, alien.
His phone.
Numb fingers fumbled and he answered.
“Derek?” Mum’s voice.
“Yes.”
He squeezed the can of Coke he didn’t realise he still held. Empty. He let go and it landed with a thud on a vine trunk. The surface rippled.
“Are you coming over tonight?” Mum asked. “I’ll make a roast. We have chicken.”
Rachel’s flesh, crispy, looked like roast chicken.
“…Vegetables…”
Rachel smelled of vegetables, with that cloying spicy tang.
“…Yorkshire pudding…”
Rachel’s shoulders bulged similar to a lump of batter, irregular and browned.
“Mum, I—”
“Come over tonight, eight o’clock. No excuses.”
“But—”
“Both of you.” She clicked off and the silence swallowed him.
Approaching seven o’clock, and Derek held an axe.
His fingers curled around the wooden handle, slick with sweat. He stood over Rachel…or what remained of her. Beneath the gleaming skin, those traceries of veins wriggled like a hundred worms. Several creepers were wrapped around her arms, and fungus covered her right hand. The main trunk, the one that wound its way from the empty pool, throbbed as though it breathed.
His eyes drifted from the seething mass in the pool, along the length of trunk, and to Rachel’s squirming flesh. He lifted the axe high—it swayed, heavy—and swung it downwards.
The blade sliced the trunk with a squelch.
A tar-like substance burst out and soaked his trousers. The severed ends whipped, stretching sinew and mucus. Both ends writhed like battling snakes spraying black venom.
Backing away, he almost slipped in the spreading goo.
Rachel shifted sideways. Her body slapped the ground and the chair skittered across the patio. The trunk flopped back into the crumbled mess of the pool.
Derek’s heart hammered so loud he didn’t hear the axe drop. He knew he should run, leave her, but he couldn’t. His mind clouded. He grabbed Rachel’s leg, sticky, slimy, and he gripped tight. He lifted her up. Awkward. Black stuff dribbled from her stump. One step after another, his back screaming, he hefted her alongside the house, beside the garage. A wind hissed through the conifers lining the driveway. They swayed as though drunk. The security light surged as he approached his VW. He squinted. The boot was already open, the compartment gaping like a mouth. The silver bodywork glinted. He wedged her inside, bunching up the creepers and quivering sacks as best he could. Black goo smeared his bumper. He rummaged behind her, feeling for his toolkit. Tugging it free, he popped the clasps. Cable-ties, where were they? He knew he had some... Finally, yes, here they were. He fastened two around her oozing stump.
He reached up and gripped the boot. The metal was cold and for the briefest of moments, his mind cleared. Dear God, what was happening? He had to call an ambulance, and… And the darkness closed in once again.
Framed by a curl of prickly vine, Rachel’s faceless head peered up at him as though saying: “Your mum’s gonna be pissed at this.”
The sound of the slamming boot echoed.
On the doorstep, Dad eyed him up and down. “Been working in the garden?”
Derek lifted his hands and stared at them. Muddied and smeared black with fungus they seemed far away, strangely detached. “Yeah,” he said. His voice sounded far away, too.
“Wasn’t a bad day before it started raining.” Dad wore his usual yellow jumper. The porch light shone from the dome of his head.
Derek nodded.
Dad’s gaze floated over Derek’s shoulder. “Where’s Rachel?”
“In the car.”
“Mum really wants to meet her.”
Behind Dad was a framed picture of the three of them on holiday in the Mediterranean: Mum and Dad with a seven-year-old Derek. They all held hands, smiling.
“I’ll go and get her,” Derek said.
Back out to the car, boot open, he lifted out Rachel. The blue-black veins wriggled beneath her flesh that was only just visible through the coiled vines. Her head flopped sideways, that blank face reflecting the orange glow of a streetlamp.
With his back killing, he carried her into the house. He didn’t even think to wipe his feet.
“We’re out here!” Dad’s voice came from the garden.
Derek staggered outside.
Mum sat on a wooden chair facing
the pond. It wasn’t often he’d see her in anything other than a floral dress and tonight was no exception. Her head jerked and twisted to look at him. She was faceless; her once wrinkled flesh taut and mauve, glistening. Her white hair, caked in black slime, clung to her neck. That all-too-familiar fungus coated half her torso.
Derek dropped Rachel beside his mum.
In the corner of his eye, a black mass swelled in what remained of the pond. He stepped back as a vine slithered free from his mum’s legs.
Rachel’s oozing stump twitched and thumped the ground. Once, twice. The cable-ties snapped from the twists of green-black flesh and flew into the garden. One hit the fence. Her stump stretched, wet and slick, towards Mum’s creeper.
Those two feelers, like tentacles, were much closer. They slurped and reached for each other, squelched and finally met.
SEEING IS BELIEVING
Simon told us about seeing the darkness and none of us believed him. You know the type; the drunk bloke at the bar, the guy you have to at least acknowledge when you’re up there getting drinks. Towards the end, I don’t think he once took a shower. Or washed his clothes. Kev and I had always called him Sad Simon.
It began several weeks ago as he sat on his stool. He was excited about laser eye surgery. He announced it to the entire pub, which was weird because none of us knew him. Usually he remained quiet, sipping his one drink of the evening. He’d saved up enough, he told us, been wanting it for years and was finally going for it.
Apparently, and this had him in hysterics when telling us, he’d opted for enhanced night vision. That didn’t mean he’d be able to see in the dark.
The next night he sat there wearing sunglasses, his head high. When he removed those glasses, I saw his bloodshot eyes. Demonic. It was the surgery. He said there was some light sensitivity but could cope, so we shouldn’t worry. With eyes burning behind those shades, he explained the elation at being able to read his bedside clock. None of us cared. Kev and I continued to mock the poor bastard behind his back.
Jenny was the first he spoke to, one to one. I overheard something about a darkness that follows us. She was a good-looking girl. She had a tattoo on her wrist; a yellow circle with a smiling face inside, nothing special.
Sad I never got to ask her about it.
A few days passed and when Simon came into the pub, he was grubby like he’d been sleeping rough. Since the operation this was the first we’d seen him without sunglasses. His eyes were still as red as you’d imagine the Devil’s would be.
Simon’s outburst filled the evening, shouting about the darkness he saw. Everywhere, he said, all around us. The landlord ignored him, didn’t even tell Simon to quieten—I’d seen our landlord shout down every potential troublemaker. I guess Simon must’ve spoken with him, changed him in someway so he wouldn’t throw him out.
The way I think he changed Jenny, too.
That was the same night Simon touched me. The back of his hand brushed my knuckles as he pushed his empty glass across the bar. My vision briefly darkened and the overhead lights seemed to flare. And that was what changed me. Why me, I don’t know.
Last night when Jenny came in, she wasn’t her usual self. She didn’t even acknowledge me, though her tattoo still smiled at me. It was then I realised I liked her.
The first time I saw the shadows they warped the air behind her head, a shimmering cloud of grey. She stood in the corner near the juke box watching a game of pool. The darkness flickered and inside there was something else, difficult to see.
The pub was packed and no one else saw it. I knew it was only me. My hands shook and when I set my drink down it almost spilled. Jenny’s eyes were sad and it was as if her face reflected shadows. I squinted as the darkness shrank…then vanished. It was as though it gave up trying to show me something. I watched her for a while, puzzled and thinking of the exchange she’d had with Simon. What was that he’d said about a darkness that follows us? She went to the ladies room.
Kev, sitting beside me, didn’t see anything. He was busy eyeing some girls as they walked to the bar. And there was Sad Simon, his eyes burning into mine. His mouth twitched at the corners. He knew. It was only me and him.
“What is it?” Kev asked me.
Pulling my gaze from the man at the bar, I focused on my friend. A darkness seethed behind his head too, only there was a faint image within those black wisps; his face dripping blood.
My breath snatched and I coughed. I tasted smoke and like a TV switching off, the image vanished. I pushed my glass away and closed my eyes.
Kev said something else but my personal darkness blocked him out. When my eyelids parted, there was Simon still staring at me. Shadows were behind him now. They showed me his face, his eyes pouring blood, his flesh peeling and curling away.
My stomach catapulted and I thought I’d be sick.
Just as it had with Kev, the vision snapped off.
There was a strange silence in my head, the urge to spew subsiding. I dragged an unsteady hand down my face.
A door slammed and the sound yanked me upright. It was Jenny staggering from the toilets. Behind her, the shadows had returned but this time it was different. It wasn’t only me, others now saw them. People screamed, leaping from their seats; stools and tables upturned in a collection of thuds and crashes. Everyone charged for the exit, shoulder to shoulder, pushing others out the way. Their cries filled my head.
Billowing like curtains, the coruscating darkness bunched up and folded around Jenny. Her face twisted and she thrashed in its embrace. Her piercing scream ripped into the chaos of the fleeing crowd. The shadows collected, pulled at her, and in seconds her body vanished.
Only the shadows remained. Their surface shimmered like a diesel spill.
My head swam as blood roared in my ears.
Kev shouted something, started pulling at my clothes. He pushed me towards the door. My legs failed me and I sprawled across the table. Drinks soaked my shirt.
The shadows whirled and something white pushed outwards, reaching for me and Kev. It was an arm, and I recognised the smiling face tattoo. There was only Jenny’s arm, nothing else of her, stretching from the darkness. She clutched something.
A knife. Ornate and magnificently crafted.
Still without seeing the rest of Jenny, the shadows surged. Her arm rigid, the knife pointed forward. Kev shouted, shoved me sideways, and the knife thrust into his face. Jenny’s fist pumped the knife in and out. The sound of that blade stabbing, sucking and splashing into his screams overtook the cacophony of everyone’s escape.
Kev collapsed in a red mess. Life rushed from him and pooled around his body. His leg twitched then was still.
I snatched my eyes away. The shadows were receding, shrinking into a tighter darkness. Jenny’s hand still clutched the knife as the shadows closed around it. Only her arm remained, just above the elbow, hanging in the air.
With a crunch and red spray it dropped, thumping the floor.
My vision blurred.
The fingers still clamped the knife, the tattoo smiling at me.
I think I whispered her name.
The blade, glistening red, sparked as if something ignited. Flames spurted from the blade and caught the carpet. Spreading outwards, catching the furniture. Unnaturally swift.
Simon now stood beside me. He held two broken bottles. The overhead lighting glinted from the jagged edges.
He rammed one into each eye.
Blood splashed me and I blinked it away. My stomach was ready to lurch upwards.
He twisted the glass into his sockets. That grinding and slurping sound was all I heard. He yanked them free, threw them aside and dug fingers into those twin holes. The mess oozed down his face. It dribbled over his gaping mouth, down his neck and soaked his clothes. He tugged at flaps of skin and peeled them away.
I remember the sound as they slapped the floor.
Simon muttered something but the shouts of the remaining few to leave the pub drowned everything
. That, and my heart stampeding my skull.
Finally I rushed for the exit, fire biting my heels. I lurched into the street, coughing and tasting smoke. Chest heaving, hands on knees, I spat.
When I looked up I saw the crowd around me. Their eyes tore me down. And playing in the air behind their heads were the shadows. It was only I who could see that darkness. Whether it was tomorrow, next year, or fifty years’ time, I saw their death. One was a fiery plane crash, another was peaceful but alone in a care home. There was cancer and diabetes, and all kinds of disease. There were car crashes and cycling accidents, there was a mugging and a stabbing…but not with that ornate knife Jenny had.
Death surrounded me.
I sprinted home.
That was yesterday. And that darkness is still there now, flickering behind every person I meet. My mother, my father—I know how they’re going to die. No matter where I go those shadows exclusively reveal how everyone dies.
This morning I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. It was instinctual. Inside the shimmering folds of darkness that floated behind my head I saw myself holding that beautiful knife—the one Jenny used on Kev’s face—and I am thrusting it into my abdomen. I twist it, pull it out halfway and then push it further in. Blood pumps over my knuckles. My jaw is relaxed and I do not scream. Nor are my eyes closed; they are like black marbles. It’s as if they focus on something, or perhaps somewhere, else.
I fall to my knees. My shallow breath fills one last red bubble while still that knife continues to work its way inside. My eyes remain open.
The shadows embrace me.
DISTURBED
Pete gulped from the flask. Water dribbled over his chin, cold, refreshing, and trickled down his neck. Behind him leaves rustled and twigs snapped. He turned to watch Kirsty duck beneath a branch and enter the clearing. She shrugged off her rucksack and let it slump on the grass beside a row of grey mushrooms. Mud caked her boots and the hems of her jeans. She unzipped her jacket and stretched. Midday sunlight glinted from her watch as she raked fingers through her hair. A blond curl rested on her nose.