by Ian Woodhead
“Was that Alan?”
He nodded then bent down and picked up his brother’s gift. The metal pole felt good in his hands. He wanted to find the next red-eyed demon and bash its fucking brains out.
“It won’t last, Damien. Once the euphoria goes, sweetheart, you’ll crash down.”
He nodded.
There’s a training tower over there, we need to get you to it before that happens.”
He was dumbfounded. “I thought you wanted to split.”
She shrugged. “We’re here for a reason. And I think your brother wants us stay.”
She kicked off the yellow vines that had succeeded in wrapping around her shoes and dragged him away from the van.
“I think Alan tried to talk to me just now. It was like listening to an out of tune radio but he was adamant in us staying here and me looking after you.”
He’d heard no such voice.
“Alan said that the only way we’re going to survive this is to find other people who haven’t been altered.”
If they did find any other soul who had miraculously survived this apocalypse, Damien doubted that they be able to ignore the fact that his beloved girlfriend was now less than human.
Unless, of course, they had changed too.
Jen walked over to the corner of the van and peered around. He shook his head, how she could see anything in this bloody stuff was beyond him. Damien kept a firm grip on the pole. He had no idea how Alan had been able to get it to him or where it had come from in the first place. His finger run over an indentation on the metal; when he looked closer, Damien saw something had been stamped into the side of it. It read ‘Holburn General Hospital’
“What are you doing?”
He shrugged. “Nothing. Is it clear?”
“Well, I can’t see anything. Are you sure you’re up to this? Do you still feel you can still take on an army of those things?”
“Why are you asking? Let’s get this over with.”
As she dragged him out into the open, he heard a low growl and a huge red-eyed demon stepped out in front of him. There was no hesitation. Damien swung the pole with all his strength and it chopped into the creature’s neck with surprising force, knocking it backwards. The creature lost its balance and crashed through the rotten van panels. Jen grabbed his hand and they both bolted through the fog, hoping that the stuff would hide them before the demon had a chance to climb out of the wreckage.
The shape of the massive tower appeared through the mist and Damien offered up a prayer of thanks when he saw a ladder bolted to the wall. The thing screeched in the distance; he glanced behind him and saw its eyes like torch beams rapidly closing in. So much for hoping to lose it.
He ordered Jen to climb up first, noticing that the growths on her face were getting worse. It couldn’t be that long before she’d notice.
Its form took shape as it neared, a few more seconds and it would be on top of him, ready to tear him into flesh confetti. Well, let it do its worst. He raised the pole, he was ready. It was about time they took a stand.
Jen’s legs had disappeared into the mist, at least she was safe. The demon stopped a few feet away, Damien guessed that he must have confused it by not running for his life; it was scratching its head.
“Come on, you scaly fucker. Let’s see what you’re made of.”
The demon growled back then raised its arm. He saw just how big it was, with five sickle-like talons on each paw, each as big as a carving knife and just as sharp. Damien began to have doubts on whether he was making the right choice here.
It stepped forward a couple of paces then the beast yawned wide, crimson saliva dripping off its jagged, spiked teeth. His metal pole now felt like a cocktail stick.
“Bollocks to you!” He threw the pole like a spear, turned and scrambled up the ladder. Suddenly, his head cleared the green fog and bright sunlight almost blinded him. He squeezed his eyes shut and climbed faster, bracing for those talons to shred his legs.
Jennifer helped him onto the ledge and he opened his eyes a crack, just in time to see the monster’s black, slimy head burst through the mist. It shrieked as its skin dried and split apart, the cleansing sunlight boiling away the blackened flesh. The demonic monster’s claws slipped off the rungs and it fell back through the dense fog screaming in anguish, the sound of it smashing into the earth silenced it.
“That bloody thing was waiting for us,” Jen gasped.
The reality of just how close he had been to getting ripped apart was just beginning to sink in. He wanted this artificial high to fuck off right now; running around thinking you were Rambo would be great if he had access to an assault rifle rather than a metal stick.
“Are you alright?”
He slowly nodded and put his arm around her waist, noticing that the green stuff on her face had gone, leaving only a faint powdery residue.
“What the hell is happening to Holburn? This is just unreal.”
Damien stood beside her at the edge and gazed out, shaking his head in disbelief. It looked like the entire town was smothered in dark green candyfloss. Only a few rooftops were visible. He glanced up, there were a couple more levels above this one and as they were clear of this green stuff, there shouldn’t be any more unpleasant surprises.
“What do we do now?”
He looked at the trapdoor above them.
“We climb and then we wait.”
Chapter Sixteen
His small wooden boat lurched to one side again. Damien’s steel fishing rod slid across the panels and fell overboard; there was nothing he could have done to stop it. His only means of feeding himself slowly sank into the thick green syrup. He watched in helpless frustration as the rod disappeared. Now what was he going to do?
The wind was picking up, rocking the fragile craft from side to side; he resisted the impulse to grab the sides. The last time he did that, some giant crab-like animal launched out of the gluey liquid and nearly snipped off his fingers. He pressed his hands flat against the base of the boat to steady himself; he had no wish to follow the fishing rod. He gazed into the frothy, green soup, knowing. Dozens of bright crimson eyes stared back at him from just below the surface. They were in no rush; they know the fragile wooden shell separating them from their meal wouldn’t last much longer.
A sudden gust almost capsized the tiny wooden craft; thick green glutinous liquid splashed over the side and flowed down the joins in the wood until it reached his splayed fingers. Damien jerked his hand back to avoid the revolting stuff from touching his skin.
He was too late to realise his mistake as he lost his balance. Damien fell out of the boat and into the…
Damien’s eyes sprang open. He still felt like he was choking from the viscous liquid filling his throat like corrosive vomit. The dream broke apart and dissolved, leaving him feeling like he had been put through the grinder and cast out like yesterday’s rubbish.
He was crouched in the corner of the room, his back pressed against the smooth wooden panels and shivering from the thin veneer of cold sweat coating his body.
“Thank God for that,” he whispered, seeing Jennifer’s concerned face in front of him. “I thought I was still alone”
“Jesus, Damien! I thought I wasn’t going to be able to wake you up. Are you all right?”
Damien wiped the sweat from his eyes and looked around the darkened room, its appearance totally changed since night had fallen.
He had wept with joy when his eyes first caught sight of this place. As his head emerged from the trapdoor, the bare wooden walls had been painted golden yellow by the afternoon sun, although the only furniture was a single bench in the corner, it didn’t matter as there was no sign of the plant contagion anywhere; for the first time since this started, he felt safe.
“Are you alright?” She repeated.
He nodded. “I think so.”
“Have you had another dream?”
He started at the flickering orange lights coming through the two large open
windows, trying to remember what it was like to wake up in a comfortable bed.
“How long have I been asleep, Jen?”
She had her mobile phone in her hand, the screen illuminating her face, and he was relieved to see that none of those growths had re-appeared.
“You had about three hours before you started to shout and twitch.”
He wiped sleep out of his eyes. Three hours? It felt like five minutes. What the hell was he doing having another nightmare? He was under the impression that he was supposed to get a restful sleep; at least that’s what he surmised from how Alan had engineered this.
Unless there was another force at work…no, he refused to accept that. This was the result of a toxic waste spill or a genetic experiment gone wrong. Whatever had happened, it was an accident. The sheer idea that this was deliberate and that someone was working to some design was too monstrous to consider. He slammed a box on the whole idea and locked it.
Damien was more than a little surprised to see that Jen’s phone still worked. The delicate electronics inside that thing should have dissolved ages ago.
“I don’t suppose there’s a signal.”
She shook her head. “I wish.”
“Still, at least the street lights still seem to be working, that’s some comfort.” Damien thought that the authorities must have reached Holburn by now. Maybe getting the streetlights to work was part of their plan to get everything back to normal again.
She shook her head. “They’re not streetlights, Damien. Come and have a look.”
He took Jen’s hand and pulled himself up. He didn’t wish to dwell on the fact that her flesh now felt like rough hewn wood.
“Do you feel any better?” There was genuine concern on her face. The aches and pains were still there and his back felt like one big bruise but he didn’t feel as fatigued as earlier.
“I’ll live,” he murmured. The metal pole had re-appeared. It was propped up against the wall, near the bench. “I threw that at the demon.”
She shrugged, “I found it under the bench a couple of hours ago.”
As he hobbled over to the window, Damien couldn’t explain why he was still so reluctant to tell Jen what was happening to her body. Did he not trust her?
There wasn’t a trace of the green mist; he wanted to believe that it had just evaporated or sunk into the ground as opposed to the wind carrying the filth into the countryside. He looked out past Holburn town centre where normal life still dominated. Thousands of street lights illuminated the sky over there but stopped at the town’s border, after that, darkness reigned supreme except for here.
Five large bonfires had been lit inside the fire station compound. He found it a little odd how the rest of the town, what he could see of it, now resembled a dense alien jungle yet the compound was still free of any large plants, although the tarmac had now given way to the interlocking yellow vines with the odd toadstool poking through.
He couldn’t see anyone else about; they couldn’t be the only ones in town to survive this - although he was still unsure whether to class Jen as a survivor, considering she appeared to be slowly becoming part of the vegetation,
There must be someone left. His brother wouldn’t have guided them here without a good reason. He walked over to his metal pole then hurried to the trapdoor.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to take a look around. I won’t be long.”
She rushed up to him, grabbed his hands and dragged him back to the window. He didn’t put up resistance, he didn’t think he could.
“Do you see that mound covered in orange flowers? Well, there’s one hiding behind there.”
“One what?” he asked, confused as hell.
“A demon, of course! Who else would it be? Santa Claus? That hillock covered in twisted spikes is what’s left of the van we hid behind. Well, there are two more of them over there.”
He tried to imagine what would have happened to him if he had gone down there and shuddered, if she was telling the truth that was. Damien stared at the two places she had pointed out yet he couldn’t see anything.
“I know what you’re thinking and I swear to God that I’m not making this up. Who do you think built those fires?”
He hadn’t really given it any thought, he’d just assumed…
“You went to sleep almost at once; I sat here as soon as it got dark and watched the demon things come out of hiding.”
“My God! They didn’t see you did they?”
She shook her head.
“Do you think that we’d still be here if they had? Besides, they were too busy with what they were doing.”
“Are you telling me that they really did build them?”
She nodded.
He imagined himself out there, somewhere in what was left of the town. Hiding out and frightened shitless and then seeing all those lights appear in the distance. What was the first thing he would do? Damien went cold inside. “Bloody hell, like moths to a flame.”
“After they lit them, most of the demons went back inside but some of them stayed, they scattered and hid.” Jennifer took a deep breath. “The first one to come through the gates was an old woman. Her face was covered in all this weird green stuff. Like what you see on underneath old fishing boats.”
“You mean barnacles?”
Jennifer nodded. Damien found it odd how she could recognise the affliction in someone else but not in herself.
“This woman walks up to a bonfire and starts to warm her hands. The firelight reflecting off her face made her look worse than the demons, I thought her illness may have sent her round the bend…but then she looked around and shouted out ‘hello’ a few times.”
Damien wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear the rest.
“I saw them slide out from their hiding places; there were four of them, all totally silent, creeping towards her from every direction. The woman didn’t notice anything until it was too late.”
Damien wondered just what must have gone through her mind when she saw those evil looking things stalking her. If she had survived through most of the day, he reckoned she must have seen or heard at least one of those things and known what they were going to do if they caught her. If it had been him in that position, he would have denied them a meal and thrown himself into the fire.
“They didn’t kill her, at least not out in the open. The first demon to catch her put its paw over her mouth and then dragged the struggling woman into the building. The others went back to their hiding places.”
Damien leaned out over the edge, determined to spot one of the creatures. He knew what he was doing was pretty bloody reckless but he couldn’t help it, he just had to see them. Jennifer pulled him back.
“Are you sure they’re still there?”
“I don’t see why not.” She sounded a little uncertain. “I saw a couple more people taken. I couldn’t take it anymore so I cuddled up to you. I must have dozed off as I woke to the sound of you screaming your head off. I didn’t think I was going to wake you up.”
“I’m glad you did. You won’t believe the nightmare I was having.”
“I wish I could wake from this nightmare,” she muttered.
Damien looked up to the full moon, taking in what she had told him. Those things obviously weren’t the mindless killers he took them to be. He still couldn’t believe that he and Jen were still alive.
“I wonder why none of them checked this place out?”
She shrugged. “Maybe they’re scared of heights.”
Jen took his hand then manoeuvred away from the window and sat him down on the bench. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Damien could tell from the look on her face exactly what it was. He prepared himself, prepared to at least look surprised when she told him. If she found out that he already knew and didn’t bother telling her then Christ knew how she’d react, probably by tearing off his arms.
“I found something growing on my skin last night and I think
it’s best if I tell you now.”
A blood freezing scream pierced the silence; Jennifer’s fear filled eyes glanced to the window, her imminent confession forgotten. Damien shot off the bench, pushed past Jennifer and edged up to the side of the window. The fire station compound was no longer empty of life. A column of the crimson eyed monster marched out of the ruined building. The demons in the middle carried aloft captive humans like baggage, their slack limbs hanging down.
Despite looking dead, Damien didn’t think they would have gone to all this trouble to have an all night party and barbeque. Jennifer appeared beside him, reached for his hand then gasped.
“Oh my God, that’s Uncle Pete. What are they doing?”
Damien didn’t have a clue. The humans were dumped in a heap then the demons formed a rough circle around them. He thought he saw the woman twitch. Damien focussed on her, leaning a bit further out, he didn’t care about being seen now. If those poor people were dead then what was the point of being here? The woman twitched again, hope surged through him. Oh thank God for that.
Three demons broke from the circle; they approached the humans and lifted them up, holding them by their necks. A deathly silence descended upon the audience. Jennifer shook her head then turned away; he wanted to do the same but some compulsion kept him from even closing his eyes. The demons lowered their heads and bit into their captive’s shoulders.
“Is it over yet?” she whispered.
“No. They’ve gone to too much trouble just to slaughter them straight away.”
The woman was the first to wake, Damien watched her become aware of her surroundings, her eyes went wide and her jaw dropped and she whimpered.