Frozen against the hard bench, she searched around the park. A young couple cuddled up under a tree, holding each other tight in the autumnal breeze. The man turned to Alex as if she’d called out. He stared back, blue fumes clouding his face from Alex.
A woman in a cheap tracksuit walked up the path towards Alex, her dog pulling hard on the lead. Alex searched the woman’s face for signs of smoke. Brown eyes glanced back, and the woman nodded as she passed by. Then Alex noticed the dog, a muscle bound Rottweiler mix. The dog twisted towards her as it trotted past, curling its lips and snarling in a barely heard growl. Alex pulled her legs away from the path, and almost missed the blue tinged air that remained where the dog had been.
“Scary isn’t it.” Clive appeared behind her.
Alex leapt up out of her seat and spun around. “I thought you were supposed to be ringing a bell!” she screamed at him. She took a deep breath and regained control, not wanting to draw any more attention to herself than necessary, here in the park, surrounded by strange semi-human creatures.
Clive rounded the bench and approached Alex with slow tentative steps. Carefully, he slid his hand around hers and sat down, pulling her with him.
“I’m sorry I had to show you that.”
Alex looked over. “It is you?” She frowned at him and squinted her eyes, focusing and refocusing on him. “Say your name.”
“Clive. I’m Clive, your friendly neighborhood demon,” he replied, his beaming smile absent.
“Oh God, Clive. What have you done to me?” She stared wide-eyed at him. “What do I do?”
For a moment, she remembered the demon’s invisibility as a jogger passed by. He glanced at her, just as she leaned into Clive’s side, and lent her head on his shoulder. She pulled reluctantly away from the demon.
“Can they see you?”
“No, I’m as invisible to them as everyone else.” Clive watched the jogger disappear down the path.
“What are they? Are they aliens?”
“They come from a dimension from beyond my own.” Clive gazed over at the horizon. “They fly in through the early morning sunshine, a journey fraught with danger, I might add.”
“Sounds corny,” Alex said.
“Maybe,” Clive replied. He still stared into the sky, a faraway look in his eye. “The few who do reach the Earth, must take immediate possession of a body. If not, they die.”
“Then why risk the journey?”
“If you somehow travelled to their dimension, you’d understand why they risk coming. And the only way they can get into a human is when the target person is in the deepest of sleeps.”
“Jesus,” Alex whispered, she trained her eyes above the level of the people passing by, and stared at the treetops. She shook images of formless creatures falling through the crisp morning sunshine and into unsuspecting human folk out of her head and wondered if she’d ever sleep through a sunrise again.
“The ones you need to worry about,” Clive sat down beside her, and leaned in conspiratorially, “the ones you really need to worry about are the ones that get above their station, begin to think that this dimension is their playground. Those ones are really dangerous.”
“Why, what do they do?” Alex whispered, her voice barely audible, eyes wide with fright.
“They reproduce.” He shook his head. “That’s not quite right, they sort of divide and expand into others.”
Alex sat hunched over, her arms wrapped around herself and gazed into a grouping of trees across the path. The birches appeared to be in a huddle, and Alex had often wondered what they were discussing so privately. “What are they called?”
“Their full name is the Andrapodistai. But we tend to call them the Podis for short.” He turned away from the horizon, and faced Alex.
“There was one in a dog.” Shock numbed her.
“Anything that has a soul will be used by them.”
“So what can I do?” Alex asked. Her face numb, her features slack, she peered into the demon’s eyes.
“You need to kill them.”
Alex’s jaw worked as she tried to speak, to say anything to make the moment not real. He hadn’t said that. Clive had made a silly joke, and life would go back to normal, without blue clouds floating out of people’s eyes. She drew her legs up to her chest, clutched them tight against her.
“You can’t be serious. You can’t possibly expect me to kill anyone.”
“You’re the only one who can help, Alex. We don’t have anyone else able to fight the Podis.”
“But there are so many of them. Hundreds of thousands must be infected … is it an infection, can I call it that?” She tried to shrink further away from the path as another Podis-person approached. “They must be close to taking over the country. What am I going to be able to do against such numbers?”
“The portal focuses in on this area, so most of the Andrapodistai are in Reading. It’s their breakthrough zone.”
“What, they can only do it here? You’re kidding.”
“I assure you, I do not kid.”
“Even so, thousands of people are… infected.”
“Actually only a few hundred Podis have come over, and I suppose infection is as good a way as any to describe them.”
Clive put a steadying hand on her knee, and she covered it with her own. Around the park, little tell-tale trails of blue drifted towards the sky.
“It is very important that you don’t tell anyone else, even Becky, about the Podis. You are so special. I don’t want to lose you.”
“What do you mean—lose me?” she interrupted, probing his dark features for understanding, completely floored by this new revelation. “I don’t understand, why me, you could never expect me to actually kill a person … hundreds of people.” She hiccupped in her emotions, as the world expanded violently around her, leaving her all alone in the middle. “There must be some other way…”
Alex’s eyes roved restlessly across the park, seeing more and more blue clouds swirling out of people’s heads. A pigeon flew out of the sky to peck at the remains of a crust near her bench. The bird gaped at her with black shiny eyes, a thick blue smoke spiraling towards Alex.
“I want… I need to… some time…” her words faded, unable to articulate her thoughts, Alex got up from the bench. She kept her eyes fixed on the path before her, and jogged. Not wanting to see any more smoke, she broke into a run.
Alex ran from the park, stumbling past a couple of joggers and a gaggle of young mothers and their prams. A little girl skipped up to Alex, her hair a fiery red, her eyes a startling blue. For a second, Alex slowed to return the wide smile the child offered, but then thick smoke poured from the girl’s eyes.
“Get away!” Alex cried out, and pushed past the girl and ran out of the park entrance.
A long wail pierced the air, and one of the mothers called out, “Learn some manners!”
Alex dodged the traffic on the road, and without slowing her pace, tore up her street. A dirt alley just wide enough for a small car led down the side of an end terrace house. She propelled herself off the pavement and down the path to the back entrances of the rear gardens. Fence panels flew past, her breath tight in her chest, her legs getting the wobbly feeling that said she should stop. Three gates along, Alex finally slowed. She stumbled through into her own garden.
Locked in, the rough surface of the fence panels against her back, Alex’s eyes fell on the kitchen window. Someone moved within—her mother. Without a second thought, Alex darted into the shed, and slammed the door behind her.
Inside was damp, the scent of earth thick in the air. A dusty window looked out onto the garden, a sturdy wooden potting bench positioned along the same side. A leftover from her mother’s attempt at growing vegetables.
Alex wiped away the cobwebs and sat on the bench. The shed door moved a little.
“Can I come in?” It was Clive. Her ever faithful Rottweiler, following her wherever she went. Could she tie him to a tree and leave him behind?
Alex pulled her legs up, and cuddled them to her chest. The demon didn’t come any further in, choosing to peer at her through the gap.
“How am I supposed to kill?” she said after a moment’s silence. “I’m not a murderer. Look at me.”
Clive stepped into the shed, and pulled the door closed.
“I’m tiny. How could you expect me to wrestle a person to death? The whole thing is bloody ridiculous.” Alex shifted a little to give the demon space to lean against the potting bench.
“There are many ways to kill, babydoll, sometimes you don’t even need to be in the same room.”
Alex snuggled up to Clive, and on impulse, stretched up and kissed him.
Clive’s lips remained soft for a moment, as if he were surprised into inaction. Then he pressed back, kissing her mouth, her neck, tickling her ear with his tongue before returning to her lips. Alex ran her hands over the soft velvety fabric that made up Clive’s cat suit. The tone of his physique seemed so real under the thin cloth.
Funny. Was this real?
Clive moved from leaning on the potting bench to her front. He parted her legs as warm hands seized her bottom and pulled her up to the edge. His body touched hers, pressed against her, down there. With another pull to her rear, his groin met her own. He rubbed the length of his erection in a slow grinding motion on the crotch of her trousers, all the while kissing her, parting her lips and touching the tip of his tongue to hers.
“Ohhh..,” Alex groaned, her hands on his rear, she forced him closer, and rolled her hips to greet his thrusts. For a fleeting second, Becky came to mind, her advice to fuck the demon. He wasn’t real, this wasn’t real. She probably had a hand between her legs, all alone in the shed.
“I can’t do this.” Alex pushed at Clive’s shoulders. The demon sealed her mouth with his own, his arms solid and unmovable around her as Alex wiggled to get away.
“Stop! Please, let me go, Clive.” She wedged a knee against the side of his stomach, and pushed hard. He gave her one last kiss, this time rough, almost toppling her onto the dirty window as he finally let go.
The demon backed off to the other side of the shed, two paces back, so he stood amongst some stacks of plastic plant pots.
“Sorry Clive,” she said, and wiped her mouth dry.
His erection twitched, his cat suit outlining the bulge. For a second, Alex thought he might jump her again. A throb erupted in her groin. From the half-lidded expression on Clive’s face, he knew her thoughts. Hastily, she pulled her legs closed, a blush rising on her cheeks.
“I’m not that kind of girl. Honestly.”
“You’re sure?” Clive pressed a hand against his pecks, then ran his fingertips down his body until they touched the tip of his erection. He squeezed and let out a groan of pleasure.
“Yes,” she said, and turned to the side slightly, her eyes on the shed door.
“If you say so.”
“So what do we do now?” In her peripheral vision, Alex watched the demon cross his arms. “Oi, what happens next?” She turned back to Clive.
He was touching his lips now, and to Alex it seemed like he was savoring her taste. “Well, I suppose if more exciting things aren’t going to happen…” He ran a hand over his chest and down to his waist.
“Stop it would you.”
“Fine.” The demon straightened up and put his hands on his hips. “Mr. Duggan,” he said. “That’s where we need to start. There’s an exceptionally fertile Podis in there, about to spawn enough beings to take over your whole street. He’s already been to visit your mother. I’ve got a feeling he was sizing her up.”
“What, my mother?” Alex sat forward. “No … can’t be.”
“He’s sensing danger. He’s already suspicious of you, I reckon he’s figuring it all out—you and me—and the easiest way to control you would be to get your mum on his side. And it would only be a matter of time before you were infected.”
“My mum. Infected? You’ve got to stop him!”
“I can’t do things in this dimension, you know that.” The demon nodded towards the house. “And I can’t protect Lily from him.”
She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, and wished all the madness away.
“Alex, pay attention.”
Nothing had changed. “How do I do it?” Alex asked, her voice low. “How do I kill him? Knife, poison? Tell me what to do.”
Clive leaned against the wall. “The old man leaves his back door open at night because he’s afraid he’ll get locked in.”
“Why would he do something so insane? Isn’t he worried about robbers?”
“He’s got a phobia from when he was a POW.”
Oh God. Mr. Duggan was a veteran. But that didn’t matter. She would not let him get her mother. She’d do anything, anything to keep her mother safe.
The demon smiled, his smug expression worrying. He continued, “All you have to do is set a fire going in his kitchen, lock the back door and go. Nothing more need be done. I told you your presence would hardly be required.”
Chapter Ten
Alex woke up to a gentle shake from Clive. He leaned over her, his eyes half-lidded and almost dreamy. The demon ran his fingertips down one of her arms then cupped a breast. The thin fabric of her night shirt did little to mask the sensation as his fingers pinched at her nipple.
“Leave me alone,” she said in a sleep-slurred tongue, but her back arched, her hips pulling her towards him.
“Time for Mr. Duggan,” he replied with a smile, showing off his sparkly white teeth in the dark room. He came closer and kissed her, nipping her bottom lip before removing his hand from her breast. “You need to be quiet. Your mother’s still awake.”
Alex lay in the semi-darkness for a few seconds, enjoying the tingling of her nerve ends. This has to stop, Alex thought. She rubbed at her boob to try and get the residue of his touch off her. More awake now, she rolled over to check out the time on her alarm clock.
“The time’s two-thirty. I don’t know what you’re worried about. Mum’ll be drunk as a skunk.”
“No, she’s sober. Lily was serious, she’s not drinking anymore.”
“Bullshit!” Alex said, but in a whisper.
“Hurry up, there’s no time to waste.”
Begrudgingly, Alex rolled out of bed, and took a dark pair of jeans from her wardrobe and a long-sleeved black shirt. “Look at me. I’m a bloody cat burglar.”
“Come on, come on.” He opened the door, and ushered her through.
Alex stopped by the living room. The door was cracked open, and the soft voice of her mother came drifting through. “Oh yes, I’ll put my mouth slowly on your enormous cock, and rasp my teeth down the edges…”
Alex backed away. “Did you bloody hear that? Holy shit, my mum actually is a telephone whore.”
“She’s very good, you know. Apparently she’s making a bundle with returning customers, and the hours suit her.”
“You her bloody pimp or something?” Alex whipped around to confront him.
“Not me, honest,” Clive said with a laugh. “Tell you what, though. She makes me randy.”
Clive lunged at Alex and pressed her up against the wall, knocking the breath out of her. Alex allowed him one long kiss before pushing him away. Clive reached down and squeezed her bum.
“Full and round, like a cherry. Yum, yum.”
“I thought we had work to do.” Alex shoved his hand away, her fingers lingering on his for a moment. The demon leaned in and lowered his face to her neck, where he inhaled slowly. A shiver tore through Alex as Clive’s breath caressed her skin. “Enough, enough, enough,” she said, and stepped away from his side.
Alex grabbed her house key, stuffing it inside one of her jeans’ pockets as she left.
The street outside was quiet, the early morning finding people in their beds, all windows dark except for that of her own living room. Keeping her head down, Alex made her way to the end of the terrace, and turned down the dirt path to the back gard
ens. The gate opened with a slight creak, and Alex slipped inside and into her garden. She only realized she’d held her breath coming up the alley when the shed door closed silently behind her.
Alex pulled out a packet of latex gloves. “Don’t get your fingerprints on the outside of the gloves,” Clive warned as she pulled open the packet. She slid them on, touching only the rims. That was all she needed for the mission. The time had come to go to Number Seventeen.
The moon shone bright in the night sky, muting out the surrounding stars. A pale yellow glow lit Alex’s way as she left her garden, and crept down the dirt path. After passing a few gardens, she stopped by the gate that led into Mr. Duggan’s. Her heart fluttered in her throat. Was she doing the right thing?
“Think of your mother,” Clive whispered in her ear.
She glared at him. “You shut up about her.” Alex closed her eyes and saw visions of blue mist. Somehow, she had to stop them taking her mother. She had seen the smoke, seen the way the Podis or whatever they were singled her out. She could now see them, and apparently they knew. They’d be after her mother, Clive was right.
Fantastic. That meant she had to kill Mr. Duggan. Maybe he was planning on doing her in—or infecting her next. That made things more urgent, she didn’t want to die. Worse, be murdered. Or have her soul sucked out while she slept. She shivered.
“Stop procrastinating and get inside.” Clive prodded her in the back, and she finally put a hand out and opened the gate. The hinges creaked softly, and Alex slipped past. The wood slid from her fingers, the springs in the hinge pulling the gate closed with a bang that sounded like a gun firing in the silence of the night.
“Bloody hell!” Alex blurted out in a harsh whisper, holding her chest where her heart beat explosively hard. She backed up against the fence and searched the overlooking windows for twitching curtains.
“Get going.” Clive pushed at her and forced her onto the garden path. She couldn’t hesitate or think with Clive insistently prodding her back. “And keep off the grass.”
Her feet moved hesitantly forward on the round stones that led to the back door. Her mind wandered to their embrace in the shed. Clive was ancient, so he must know exactly what to do with a woman by now. What a time to be thinking of sex, she reprimanded herself, and refocused on the gruesome task she was about to take part in.
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