Blood Water

by Dean Vincent Carter

  ‘God, I don’t know,’ Waites replied after a pause. ‘It’s clearly here for a reason. And if it got into your head, it might be able to locate its mates. Don’t tell me anything about their location then. Let’s just concentrate on this one; we can worry about the others later. Do you know how many there are?’

  ‘Quite a few, I think,’ James said; Holland had used the word thousands in his journal.

  ‘All right, we’ll worry about them later. Come on, let’s find this thing and kill it.’

  James moved forward again, his way lit intermittently by flashes of lightning. He had the strange feeling of being in a horror film. Wherever the dog was, it was being very quiet. However, the thing inside it wasn’t stupid: it knew its host wasn’t ideal, so it was being more cautious now. James remembered Titus’s death in the laboratory. The man just fell apart when Sean kicked him, like there was nothing holding his insides together. He remembered too the cold, sickening sensation he’d felt at the sight of that thing wriggling into Sean’s mouth. It had been the worst feeling ever. What would happen to his brother now? Could he survive after even those few seconds’ exposure? James couldn’t bear the idea of Sean having to go through that agony. He knew that if the time came and there was no other option, he might have to—

  He shook himself out of his morbid thoughts and tried to concentrate on the task before him. As he followed the bloody tracks, he readied himself to react to any attack. Waites managed to move silently behind him despite the pain he was in.

  The drops of blood trailed along the kitchen floor to a space under the counter where there was a pedal bin and a couple of boxes of mineral water. Behind these James saw a glint from what looked like an eye. The dog didn’t stir. James kept his eyes on the space, beckoning Waites forward and pointing. He saw him nod, then look around for a weapon.

  Waites slowly opened the cupboard in front of him: plates and a jug were all he could see. He tried the cupboard below: saucepans, frying pans and baking trays – much more like it. He chose a heavy iron frying pan for himself and gave James a sturdy saucepan. For a moment he felt ridiculous, but then told himself that they were simply doing whatever they could under the circumstances. They had no access to guns or… knives. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Although maybe blunt force was the best way to deal with this thing, and swinging a knife around in such a small space might be dangerous. At least with a pan the worst they could do was stun each other.

  ‘Right – how are we going to do this?’ Waites whispered, stifling a cry of pain as his foot protested.

  ‘OK… I’ll charge and scare it out. You hit it.’ There was a pause as they both thought this through.

  ‘Can he understand what we’re saying?’ Waites asked.

  James thought about this. The creature had been inside several people now: it had talked through them, used their memories… It was now inside a dog, but could it still understand human speech? There was no way of knowing for sure, and they didn’t have time to test it out.

  ‘I don’t think it’ll make much difference,’ James said. ‘I mean, even if it does know what we’re going to do, there’s not much—’

  The dog chose that moment to dart from its hiding place across the kitchen floor into the rest area. It scampered under tables and chairs, all the way to the windows at the far end.

  ‘Little bastard!’ Waites screamed.

  Then they heard a thump, and when they turned to look back under the counter, they saw an arm. The hand was greeny grey, and the body it was attached to was surely no longer alive.

  ‘Jesus,’ Waites said. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ James said after a shocked pause. ‘Should I check?’

  ‘You take a look, I’ll go after the dog.’

  ‘All right, but don’t tackle it without me.’

  ‘I’ll just keep an eye on it. Don’t be long. Just check if they’re alive or not. We’ll deal with them once we’ve sorted the dog.’

  Waites moved painfully off after the dog, frying pan held firmly in his hand. James crept over to the storage space and knelt down. The body was that of a young woman in her twenties, though James didn’t recognize her. Her eyes were half open, her mouth agape, and James knew she was dead even before he checked for a pulse. She must have been hiding from Holland when he’d gone berserk – though it wasn’t clear what had killed her.

  Poor thing, James thought. She was attractive, he could tell, even though she wasn’t looking too good right now. He was about to stand up when he saw her lower lip move. There was a sound too – air escaping from her lungs perhaps. Maybe she was still alive after all. He put his hands on her shoulders and gave her a light shake. Her mouth opened wider, as if to say something, and that’s when the slimy black creature shot out from between her lips and straight into his mouth before wriggling its way up into his brain.

  CHAPTER 31

  What terrified Sean most wasn’t the fact that the creature’s memories lingered in his mind, or that he had some psychic link with it; he feared that part of it might have been left behind – which surely made it more likely that he’d succumb to that horrible death. He was staring through the window, unable to move or even remember what he was supposed to be doing, or where the other two had gone. He was stunned, immobile, consumed with dread; he suddenly wondered if it would be better for everyone if he just walked out into the night, never to be seen again.

  Then he heard footsteps upstairs and was shaken from his gloom. No, he thought, I’m not going to run. If I only have hours left, I’m going to use them to put an end to all this. I’m not going to die alone and useless. He felt odd – his stomach ached and he was shaking too, but he walked purposefully out of the office and headed up to the first floor. Whatever task faced him now, he felt equal to it.

  * * *

  If he’d had time to think about it, James might have wondered why the creature had chosen to hide in the body of the dead girl instead of remaining in the dog. As it was, the alien entity quickly asserted its control over his consciousness. Everything was mixed up in his head – time, names, places – even smells burst from nowhere and confused him, while the creature adjusted everything to its taste. When things settled down again, James was aware only of a smothering darkness; sounds and movement came and went, reminding him that he wasn’t asleep or dead, merely locked away in his own mind while something else used his body.

  Waites was stalking the dog when James came up behind him. The teacher heard movement under a table and saw the dog limp out, whining and looking up at him as if for sympathy.

  ‘It must be feeling the pain now,’ he said to James. ‘Bit late to appeal to our better nature though. What do you think we should do – jump on it? Might just squash that thing inside it at the same time.’

  He glanced at James, who seemed unusually quiet. ‘You OK, James? What about the girl – was she dead?’

  There was a pause before the younger man replied, ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Right, well, you get ready to catch this little bugger if it gets away from me. I’m going to—’

  The hand on his throat came as a complete surprise. The crushing power was simply terrifying. He tried to choke out a question, but could do nothing but splutter as he was forced round. Looking into the strange glazed eyes, he tried desperately to escape from the powerful hold. He tried kicking and punching, but this had little effect on his attacker. Waites was sure that James intended to kill him, and that could only mean one thing: somehow the creature had got inside him. Waves of colour swam across his vision and he felt light-headed, but just as he thought he might black out, a strange look came over James’s face and he loosened his grip.

  Waites broke free and staggered away, nearly falling as his damaged ankle gave way.

  ‘Where is it… ?’ James said impatiently: he was looking at the ground as if trying to remember something. ‘Let me see… Let me see where they are.’

  ‘They?’ Waites asked, confused.

&
nbsp; But the creature was concentrating hard; it spat in frustration. ‘You will show me… Or I will find out for myself.’ The thing that was James looked up, then turned and marched out of the room, apparently forgetting Waites was even there.

  Waites breathed out in relief and limped after it, wondering how he was going to get that thing out of the boy if there was no more salt water.

  Sean was halfway along the first-floor corridor when he saw his brother dart into Holland’s room. Hearing furniture being overturned, he came up behind James and saw a mess of papers and books on the bed.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ he asked.

  There was a pause as James straightened and turned to him. ‘We don’t have much time. Waites has that thing inside him. He’s going to come and try to find out where the others are. We have to stop him or there could be thousands of these things on the loose.’

  ‘Oh my God. It’s in him?’ Sean was aghast. ‘Well, we have to get it out!’

  ‘There’s no time. We have a bigger problem. We have to find the others.’

  ‘There are more of them? No…’ Sean couldn’t believe it. This thing wasn’t a single monster, like in horror films. This was one of many, a plague; if the others were just as dangerous, there was no hope for anyone. ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘Look through this stuff. See if you can find anything that mentions more of them. There must be something. If we can find it, he can.’

  ‘What about Holland’s computer?’

  ‘No good – the hard drive’s been destroyed.’

  ‘He destroyed his hard drive?’

  ‘No, I did.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It had what we’re looking for on it.’

  Sean sifted through the papers, some typed, some written in an almost illegible hand. He became aware of approaching footsteps and tapped his brother on the shoulder. ‘He’s coming.’

  James looked up at him, then at the doorway. ‘Get back,’ he said, picking up a table lamp and holding it up, ready to strike the teacher when he walked in.

  The footsteps slowed and Sean could tell that Waites was waiting near the door, no doubt aware of them. He looked across at James, whose face was suddenly twisted with hatred.

  Then Waites walked in, and everything happened too quickly.

  CHAPTER 32

  Waites saw Sean first; he was just forming words when James swung the lamp at his head, sending him to the floor. Sean noticed deep red marks on the teacher’s neck – the man looked half dead.

  James leaped on the teacher’s prone body and started punching him, his teeth clenched, spittle flying. Sean couldn’t believe it was his brother. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

  Waites struggled and tried to shake James off, screaming all the while for Sean to help him, to stop his brother.

  ‘It’s in him, Sean! Get him off me – it’s in him!’

  And all at once things were worse, far worse. Sean was stuck between action and inaction. Part of him wanted to push his brother off the struggling teacher; the other wanted to do nothing and let his brother destroy the creature and the unfortunate body it still possessed. But it didn’t make sense. The teacher couldn’t move, and the thing inside him would surely have tried to jump into James’s body by now. And James had struck him on the head: that was the weak spot, but Waites was still conscious.

  ‘No!’ Sean charged forward into his brother so that he rolled off Waites and onto the floor. He helped the teacher to his feet, praying he had made the right decision.

  ‘Sean,’ Waites said. ‘We need to restrain him and get that thing out.’

  But the creature had already guessed their plan: James was on his feet in seconds. ‘It’s too late… I know where they are.’ He turned and ran towards the stairs.

  ‘No!’ Sean screamed, suddenly realizing that his brother was indeed infected.

  ‘Damn it!’ Waites groaned, rubbing his battered head.

  ‘No!’ Sean screamed again in disbelief. ‘He… He said something about you looking for the others. Lots of them. It must have been looking for them itself though. We’ve got to get it out of him,’ he said, following his brother. ‘We have to get it out of him now!’

  ‘We will, don’t worry,’ Waites replied. ‘If it finds the others, we’re finished. We’re all finished. Come on.’

  Downstairs the creature made its way past the lecture theatre and the laboratories towards the front entrance. It only vaguely registered the figure that had once been the headmaster of Orchard Wells High School. Its new body was good. Young, more agile than the others. Strong too. More importantly, the young man’s memory had the information it required. He knew where the others were and could picture their location.

  It had taken a while to get the information – the boy had been blocking it somehow, but eventually, as the creature had made itself at home, the barriers had come down, and it was allowed access to everything he knew. It could barely contain its excitement. On its own it would only ever be able to jump from host to host. With others of its kind, it could spread throughout the world, using up the humans until there were none left. But there were millions of human beings – it had learned this much. It would take a long time to use them all up. Such fun. And even though it would all come to an end at some point, it would be worth it for the experience, for the education. It would be better than floating around in a pool of water for thousands of years. Lost in its thoughts, it suddenly allowed its host to stumble and fall on his knees, but it didn’t mind. In fact it was laughing.

  Sean had to help Waites down the stairs: he’d not only been bitten and half strangled, he’d also been bashed on the head. However, they walked as fast as they could – if they lost the creature’s trail then all hope would be gone. They were passing Morrow’s office when they heard the front door slam.

  ‘He must have gone out the front,’ Waites said, hobbling along. ‘Come on, before we lose him.’

  Hurrying into the reception area, they opened the front door and peered out into the night.

  At first they saw nothing in the dark and the rain. Then Sean noticed something moving along the track leading to the road. James was running down the bank towards the car.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ Waites asked. ‘He’ll never get that thing started again – it’s finished.’

  ‘He’s after something,’ Sean replied. ‘Maybe a torch.’

  ‘There’s one in the glove box. That means we’ll need one too.’

  ‘I saw one in Morrow’s office,’ Sean said. ‘A big metal one. I’ll go and get it.’

  ‘OK – be quick though. I’ll keep an eye on your brother.’

  ‘Right…’ Sean hesitated. ‘Are we going to… Will we have time to get it out of him? I don’t—’

  ‘We’ll think about that later. Right now we have to stop him from reaching the other creatures. What are we going to do about them? If they really are around here somewhere, they pose an even greater threat. We may have to destroy them now while we have a chance.’

  ‘But James – I mean, that thing is the only one who knows where they are.’

  ‘Which means we’ll have to follow it and let it find them. For now, just go and get the torch.’ Waites gave Sean a gentle push in the direction of the offices.

  The teacher couldn’t see much, but he kept his eyes fixed on the spot where James had vanished from view. Sure enough, he soon spotted a flicker of light, then James came back into view, running towards the car park.

  CHAPTER 33

  The creature would have seen Waites if it had turned its head, but it was focused on its objective. It had only seen part of the study centre, but James knew the area well, so the creature was able to combine the mental map in his memory with the information he had read in Holland’s diary. It was like having a treasure map and a list of clues. Navigating in the dark would be difficult, but the creature knew roughly where to find the place Holland had mentioned – the place where, after thousands of years
of solitude, it might at last be reunited with others of its kind.

  James sprinted across the muddy car park, spray exploding around him, and through an open gate into the long grass beside the lake. The torch beam waved around like a searchlight, illuminating the sodden ground and the surface of the lake, which looked alive under the constant downpour.

  * * *

  Sean retrieved the torch from Morrow’s office and would have left immediately had he not noticed something out of the corner of his eye. It was a small Dictaphone, lying beside the slim PC monitor – innocent, lifeless, yet somehow significant. Or was Sean just imagining it? Time was of the essence, so he picked up the small tape recorder and hurried back towards the main entrance.

  As he did so, he pushed the rewind button, then depressed ‘play’.

  ‘… clear that whatever it is, it is outside our generally accepted evolutionary path. This creature may have been around for millennia, possibly since the dawn of time. It shares characteristics with marine life found in prehistoric waters, but aside from that I am completely lost—’

  Sean stopped the tape and glanced into the first laboratory. A thought had just struck him. He slid the Dictaphone into his pocket and rushed over to the cabinets, trying not to look at the body of his headmaster. He found the shelf with the jars of water, but James had smashed the only one containing sea water. How had James got the creature out of him? It was all so hazy now. Sean looked around and spotted the container of sodium chloride standing on top of one of the benches. Of course.

  ‘Sean!’ It was Waites, no doubt eager to follow James. But Sean wasn’t ready to do that until he had some way of saving his brother first. He grabbed the sodium chloride, which was now only a quarter full, rushed over to one of the sinks and filled it to the top with water. Screwing the lid back on, he shook it well, then headed back towards the entrance hall.

  Waites was growing agitated. ‘Come on, we have to go now!’ he said as he led Sean out into the wet and dark towards the open gate.