The Kielder Strain: A Science Fiction Horror Novel

by Rebecca Fernfield

  In the distance metal clacks. Looking up, he stares at a face peering out from behind a curtain. The eyes are wide. Max snarls as he stares back. Terror flickers in the woman’s eyes and the curtains drop back into place. He takes a chunk of membrane and coiled intestine in his mouth and tears. The tap, tap of footsteps sounds again. More food. He stands, drags the body off the path and hides it behind a low wall, then crouches behind a thick shrub. He jumps back to the path, runs along the shadows and checks from behind a parked car. A figure is walking slowly up the path to the church. Behind, Lois runs to join him. He snarls in silence as she reaches his side and they both watch as the man takes another slow step towards the church.

  Reverend Baxter senses the animal’s presence behind him before he has a chance to realise something has jumped over the wall and into the churchyard. He freezes. The ungodly howling of this morning had reoccurred this evening, and he’d been overcome with a need to pray. His need had driven him to walk to the church, unaided by Kathy. It had been a slow and painful walk, and his heart was pumping hard with the effort, but it would be worth it.

  He stops as hot breath brushes against his neck. Our Father … The breath is moist and sour, and laced with the unmistakable metallic scent of blood. His feet are stones. Unable to move, he waits as the thing behind him steps to his side. It sniffs at his neck, withdraws, then moves to face him. At his other side, only slightly further away, another figure circles him. As a pair of eyes scowl back into his, he feels the urge to urinate and he stumbles against his walking stick. The creature puts out a hand, and steadies his fall without breaking its gaze. The eyes are black at their centre, ringed with red, and only small areas of white remain. Its hair is dishevelled and greasy, and covers much of its face, though thinner across its cheeks. Bizarrely, memories of the village fete come to mind along with the face of Doctor Maximillian Anderson smiling at him from the stocks, his face flushed red, and his hair dripping with water as another child grabs a wet sponge from the bucket and lobs it at him. Who art in heaven … He stares again at the creature.

  “Max?”

  It snickers, then claws dig into the Reverend’s shoulder from behind. The creature gnashes its teeth before flying at its companion. The other beast is knocked back, its breasts moving freely beneath shredded cloth. The reverend looks away quickly as its legs splay and he’s reminded of Courbet’s ‘L’Origine du monde’, a copy of which he’d been shown by a cheeky, if not irreverent, member of the congregation who’d pushed his mobile phone’s screen at him. The Reverend had taken a good look at the painting, and made a comment about that particular depiction of labia being an accurate representation of a woman’s genitalia, then thanked the boy for showing it to him. The boy’s cheeks had turned puce and he’d shown up at church the following Sunday without being able to meet his eyes but with an extra pound for the collection tray.

  The female cowers as the male snaps at her, but she isn’t completely subservient and offers him an angry snarl as she stands. The male turns again to the Reverend, takes a step closer, puts out its hand, then turns and sprints across the grass, vaulting over gravestones and then the wall before disappearing into the dark. The female follows.

  The Reverend slowly drops to his knees on the grass, offers a prayer of thanks, and asks for mercy for the soul of the man who was now barely human.

  The man—Reverend … the Reverend … sorry Father, for I have sinned. Max chuckles. The man in the churchyard had been rotten. Max could smell the poison that laced through his body as keenly as if it had been shit trapped between his toes. Memories had floated too, but they were hazy, just faces and smells. He runs back to the body tucked behind the wall and drags it across the road and into the forest. Closer to his lair he drags the body into the tree where it will keep - keep like a pig, hanging from a hook. Max snickers. Away from greedy scavengers. In the village an engine thrums into life.

  As Jim’s body hangs safely over the bough, and Max turns his attention to the engine, Anya’s father pulls the car out onto the road, quickly flicking on the car’s headlights, hoping his wife hasn’t noticed he’d started down the road without them to light the way. He checks the rearview mirror. Anya is slumped in the back, her damaged shoulder hidden against the car’s seat. It had taken every ounce of his fatherly authority to get her into the car. Apart from her teenage stubbornness, Anya was morbidly afraid of anything to do with hospitals; the mere mention of A&E had sent her spiralling into hysterics. She’d only calmed when he’d laid it on thick about the bite getting infected and the possibility of the dog being rabid. His belly clenches—it probably was. Why else would a dog attack someone? It’s not as if Anya was the intruder.

  Michael had ridden Anya’s tantrum with the weary stoicism that only a long-suffering parent can manage. The hardest part was seeing how ill she was becoming, and he was now convinced that the dog had given her an infection, even though he knew, in rational thought, that an infection – surely? - wouldn’t take effect so quickly. Nevertheless, her face had drained of colour to such an extent that a network of blue veins could be tracked across her face, neck and shoulders. It had been when the whites of her eyes had begun to fill with blood that he’d taken action. Karen had turned to him with a horrified panic as the first blood vessels had burst. Ignoring Anya’s protestations, he’d grabbed the keys from the counter, picked her up in his arms, and carried her to the car. By this time, she was flagging, was less argumentative, and had swayed against the kitchen table a couple of times. He couldn’t shift the worry that she really was very seriously ill.

  He shifts the gear into third and presses the accelerator. The needle climbs to twenty-five. Sod it! Whatever the speed limit was, he didn’t care, he had to get his baby to a doctor. As the car leaves the village boundary, and the road swerves into the woods, he checks the back seat. Her greyed-out figure hasn’t moved.

  “She alright?”

  “She’s asleep.”

  “Good.”

  Movement catches his attention from the back window. Something is moving behind the car. Something that the red lights pick out, then lose. An animal from the forest, perhaps a deer. He accelerates and it disappears. Michael focuses on the road ahead, headlights on full beam, and drives as fast as he dares, his wife’s silence in the back seat, an indicator of her own concern. Usually, she’d make a quip about his terrible driving. It was their little joke; both of them knew that he was a good driver.

  Anya stirs then groans.

  “It’s alright, honey,” Karen croons. “Go back to sleep.”

  The girl shifts again. Michael checks in the rearview mirror. It’s difficult to see, but she’s facing the front, and from the glint of reflected light has her eyes open. She yawns, and the white of her teeth catches the moonlight. Michael chuckles. She must be feeling better to be messing about with fake teeth.

  “Look out, Karen!” he jokes. “There’s a vampire sitting next to you.” Although relieved that Anya seems to be recovering, as he speaks, it does strike him as odd that she’d be messing around with a pair of fake vampire teeth after feeling so shoddy only half an hour ago.

  “Hungry,” she rasps.

  He makes a bad attempt at a vampire’s laugh and adds, “Vor your blod.” He snorts. His accent is terrible.

  “I’ve got some crisps in my bag if you want so- … agg!”

  His wife’s voice comes to a suffocating stop. He checks the rearview mirror again. Anya is leaning over her mother as Karen bucks and kicks, her arms battering against the girl’s back.

  “Hey! Quit it Anya, that’s enough. You’re hurting your mother!”

  Karen bats at the girl’s back then flings her arm to the window. It lands with a thud.

  “Quit it!” he shouts and presses the brakes hard enough to jolt their bodies forward.

  Anya’s head bounces against the back of his seat, jolting him. He twists in his seat. She turns to face him as Karen drops to the seat. Blood-filled eyes glare at him and teeth sna
p. Karen writhes on the back seat, gasping for breath, air sucking in through the gaping wound of her throat, her arms flailing. He screams as he reaches for the door’s handle and falls out of the car. In the distance he thinks he sees lights. As he scrambles to his feet and lurches onto the verge, the back door opens and Anya staggers out. Behind her, two figures burst into view. Michael screams as three monsters spring through the air, jaws snapping, claws outstretched, and pin him to the wet grass.

  22

  The man had screamed until the girl had ripped his throat. Max had knocked her back, making her wait until his belly was full. Always first. He was always first. They had to wait. Know their place. He sits and watches as they rip the man’s flesh, their faces smeared with his blood. The girl is greedy and Lois slaps her, snarling with teeth bared. Max sits on his haunches and turns to leave. The body was heavy, too far from their place to take back. His mind flits again to the woman in the house. Wait for me, little mouse. He snickers and the girl twists her head to stare. Her eyes shine black; caught in the moonlight, they’re liquid pools. She snickers and turns back to the carcass. Eat your fill, little one. Eat. He gnashes his teeth, turns, and sprints back towards the village.

  A memory floats, digs at him. She, floating in white, he waiting, She smiling, She crying, naked baby held to her breast. He gasps at the pain. Laura! He slows, falls to his knees, tips his head back and howls. “Lauuuurraaaaa!”

  One more time, just one more time. He snaps his teeth together, his mouth watering as he remembers her smell, her taste, her breasts, her belly, her thighs, her lips. He sprints. The urge to hold She, take She, eat She, overwhelming.

  At their house … his home … their loving nest … lair, the door opens with a click and Max steps into the warm hallway. Lucidity returns. He’s home. The scent of Laura is thick in the air. Her coat hangs on its peg, her shoes beneath the hall table. He treads softly, the fibre of the runner catches on his feet and muffles each step. The house is silent and the downstairs rooms are dark. Through the kitchen doorway at the end of the hall the red light of the kitchen clock glows—3:45 am. He treads through to the kitchen, takes a glass, fills it with water, and drinks. The glass clinks against elongated canines and cracks. Thirst quenched, he returns to the hallway and stands at the base of the stairs. She’s up there, lying in bed, waiting for him to come home.

  Hand on bannister he steps onto the first riser. It creaks beneath his weight. Laura’s breath comes slow and steady from the bedroom, he can hear the gentle rise and fall of the bedclothes as she sleeps. Her scent intoxicates him, and he yearns for her warmth, to be in her arms. He stalls. Waits on the stairs, then turns. He can’t go to her like this. Not as this monster. He takes a step down. But - his heart hammers - he has to see her again. Just one last time, whilst he still has moments where he can think straight, where he is Max again. She moans in her sleep, turns in the bed. In swift strides, he pounces to the landing and then he’s at the open door of their bedroom. Just one last look.

  He steps inside. She moves, flips her arm flat on the bed and turns her face to him. Without moving, he watches as she sleeps. She looks the same as the first day they’d met. He’d never forget their eyes meeting across the room. She was with a bloke with a long beard, he with a couple of mates from the university. She hadn’t left with him that night, but the next evening he’d returned to the pub and she’d walked in, searched the room, and smiled when she caught him looking at her. That had been the start. The day she became his wife was the best in his life, and his only regret was that their union had produced no children—no living children—poor, poor Amy. She murmurs. Her lips part and the white of her teeth glistens. The smell of her sex rises as she twists again, her legs splayed. He has to touch her, hold her in his arms. He closes the door then draws the curtains until they’re almost closed. Clouds shift across the moon and the room becomes darker still. He steps to his side of the bed. She’s ovulating—he can smell the sweet saltiness of her pussy.

  The ache of need warms through his hips and begins to pulse. Erect, and burning with the need to fornicate, he peels the bedclothes back, uncovering her torso. She’s wearing a thin cotton nightgown. Her nipples are dark against white skin beneath the thin fabric. She remains still and he pulls the cover down past her belly. The nightgown has ridden up to her waist. He aches for her. Fully aroused, he peels the cover to expose her flesh. A dark mound of hair sits between her legs. He leans forward and takes a long breath through his nose, slow and gentle, filling his nostrils with her scent. Her pubic hairs brush his nose and he flicks his tongue between her lips, licking at the bud. A groan of desire. Laura shifts and rolls, her back facing him. He slides into the bed next to her, spooning her body, slipping his arm over her waist.

  “Max, you’re home,” she says through her half-sleep.

  He nuzzles her neck and grunts softly. Erect, he pushes against her. She gasps then moans as he slips his fingers between her legs. “Max,” she rolls onto her back, her arm over his back. “Max?” He has to have her … Sliding across her belly, he parts her legs and, ravenous, plunges inside, thrusting hard, grunting with effort. Pussy … fuck pussy … fuck … fuck … the pulsing ache grips him with each thrust, pushing him deeper inside. Come deep … come deep … deep inside. She groans with pleasure. He slams against her. She arches her back as the first wave of orgasm hits him, she meets him with her own, her moan deep and guttural, her vagina contracting. She belongs to him, no one else. He throws his head back to howl her name as clouds shift from the moon and a shaft of silvery light falls across the bed. Muscles deep within his groin ejaculate, flooding her vagina with his seed, and she screams.

  Deep within her, where new life forms, the hybrids find their prey.

  Emily startles from sleep and looks across the road through the half-opened curtains. The moon is still in the sky though the night is fading. Stars twinkle in the midnight blue. How many more times will she see them? Her life is fading too, at ninety-three years old, she’s grateful for each new day and wakes to the sunlight with a smile.

  Sudden movement over the Anderson’s wall catches her attention and she watches with shallow breaths as a figure vaults over again. The same man-thing as the other night. Its body arcs with ease over the wall and lands with steady feet on the path. For a moment it passes through the orange haze of the street light. The man, though the poor creature must be deformed, is naked. For a second it seems to stare right through her window and she holds her breath until it turns and gallops away.

  In the Anderson’s house a bedroom light switches on, and Laura’s face appears at the window. Even from this distance, Emily can sense her terror.

  As Max returns to the forest, full of pain for She, yearning for the warmth of the Others, to curl up with them under the workbench, the window of the woodsman’s cottage is bright and yellow in the early morning dark. He jumps down from the tree and lands with a soft thud among the pile of brittle needles. A figure walks across the window; a woman. The scent of burning oil lingers in the air and, as he passes the car parked beside the door, warmth brushes his legs. The engine is still hot, the woman just home. He can see no one else. Not that they would stop him taking what he wants. He creeps to the window and watches. Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? Blonde hair curls at her shoulders, breasts push at her shirt above a curving waist and hips. Kelly … her name is Kelly. Does nurse Kelly want to come out to play? He snorts. She jerks her head to the window. He drops below the sill. When he looks back into the room, she is taking packages from a bag and placing them on the kitchen table.

  His belly is full, but the urge to bite, and gnash, and tear, and fornicate remains.

  He watches her, mouth salivating, heart beating a quick tempo against his ribs. A shiver runs over his body as his groin aches. He wants her. Wants to devour her. His teeth gnash as his scrotum tightens.

  Moving quickly, but with silent steps, he makes his way to the door and presses down the handle. No need to hide … Ke
lly! Oh, Kelly. I’m here. I’ll huff and I’ll puff. Excitement grows; she’s unaware and unprotected. He steps into the house. The hallway is dark, the only light is in the kitchen. She reaches for a packet from the table then disappears behind the door. A cupboard door opens and closes. He takes a step closer. Her odour is rich, musky, and sweet. Driven by instinct, he moves into the kitchen and slams the door closed. She turns and screams as he pounces. The pain pierces sensitive eardrums and he gags her mouth with his hand. Forcing her into the corner, he pushes against her body. Her eyes wide, she stares at him, screaming beneath his palm. He leans down and bites at her neck, sinking teeth into warm tissue, licks at the blood that seeps from the wounds. Her smell is musky, but doesn’t have the ripeness of Laura. As he withdraws his incisors, she sags in his arms, her eyes rolled back to reveal the whites. He lays her on the floor, takes a final look, and leaves. The game has just begun.