by Ian Woodhead
Looking around the filthy room, he saw just one door, and Peter hoped that it would lead him out of this godforsaken place. He needed to get back home. There had to be a way of convincing the others to rescue him without continuing this foolhardy mission. He didn’t want anybody else to die here. “This place needs nuking,” he muttered as he ran across the room.
The door led back into the sewer networks. He tucked the cleaver into his belt and started to climb the metal ladder bolted to the side of the wall, relieved to see a manhole cover directly above him. He was seconds away from the surface. Peter knew that the area was probably crawling with shuffling dead people, but he reckoned that he should be able to dodge them and somehow get to the chopper.
He pushed up the metal cover, blinking at the warm sunlight flooding his face. “Oh, man, that is so good.” Peter hooded his eyes, looked around the street, shocked and relieved to find that he was alone. He heaved his body onto the surface and ran towards the closest building. Peter had no idea where in London he was. He did know that they had landed on one of the tallest buildings in the city. Unlike his home city, this place didn’t really have that many tall buildings. It shouldn’t be that difficult to locate the one they landed on.
“Where are all the dead people?” He pressed his face against the glass door and saw a couple of them shambling about. Peter hurriedly stepped back before they could sense him. They were still in the buildings, but the streets were empty. He shook his head in confusion. “Don’t knock it, buddy, it makes your life easier.” Peter walked along the middle of the road, cleaver in hand, keeping one eye on the skyline and the other alert for any unexpected surprises.
“You know where they are, they’ve gone after the last of the survivors.” He stopped when he reached another manhole, the cover on this one was missing. He kneeled down; he could hear distant screams coming from the sewers. Peter scrambled to his feet and began to run when he saw a building that he recognised. “Shit, there it is!”
Peter raced into the building. He passed the bodies, wishing he and Jackie had just turned back around and gone back to the helicopter. Peter stopped by the door that led to the stairway. He didn’t even know if she was dead, he never saw that monster kill her, it only dragged her away. Peter ran over to a window and looked at the deserted cityscape. Even if that was the case, how would he even find her?
His wife was gone. It was time that he accepted that. Peter hurried up the last of the stairs, heading towards the roof, vaguely wondering why he was beginning to accept the fact that his wife was gone from him. The loss and pain was there, but it took some digging to find it.
Peter pushed open the door to the roof and raced over to the helicopter. He climbed into the cockpit and activated the signal. He sat back in the pilot’s chair and closed his eyes, feeling restful. All his pain had just flushed out of him, he felt so good.
Peter snapped open his eyes and looked at the multitude of cuts and bruises running down his arm, the rest of his body were just as bad. With dread, he pressed his fingernail into one of the cuts and felt no pain, he moaned aloud when he realised that he was now infected.
Chapter Fifteen
The clear blue sky offered him an unrestricted view over the city. From his vantage point nineteen stories above the ground, Osmond Stone could easily track his three visitors as they travelled over the rooftops two miles from his headquarters. He passed the field glasses to his lieutenant and strode over to his waiting group of sergeants.
“This is what we’ve prepared for. You know your individual tasks. Go to it.”
They abruptly turned and shuffled out of his boardroom. He caught a few stray thoughts as they left his presence. Their agitation must be acute if they allowed themselves to release such black images. His sergeants learned quickly to keep their inner thoughts firmly suppressed. That last man closed the door. Privately, Osmond agreed that he had made some fatal mistakes regarding this entire operation. Even so, that last man had unwittingly become the final piece in his forthcoming plan
“Mr Stone? We have just lost contact with our last watcher.”
The suited man slowly nodded. He picked up his own weapon and retrieved the field glasses from his lieutenant. “Bruce, you have been my most trusted friend and guide for the past three years. Tell me, do you believe that I have made too many mistakes?” He sighed. “Please, be candid here.”
The large man picked up his own rifle and slung it over his shoulder. “Osmond, you can’t start second guessing yourself, not now. You definitely can’t use hindsight as an effective guide. You’re our leader and our military commander. You’re trained to make sudden life or death decisions.” He placed his hands on Osmond’s shoulders. “You faced the unknown, and we have emerged more or less intact.”
“Fucking great answer!” he snapped. “How can you even make such a complete fuck up sound even remotely positive? Those bastard mutants have mind raped all of our lookouts and then eaten them. I managed to get all of our sniper team killed by a fucking girl!”
The lieutenant nodded. “I know all that, Osmond.” Bruce looked over at the door. “I caught their thoughts as well, you know. How do you think any of those clowns would have coped in the same situation?” The man hurried over to the door. “You know that answer, Osmond.”
The man followed Bruce through the door and walked through the building towards the lift. “He knew his lieutenant was right about everything. It still didn’t stop him from thinking that he had fucked up, big time. Thanks to the first multi-limbed freak, most of his underground kingdom was gone. The dead had cleaned out the sewer networks and basements, scattering what remained of his people. He should have dealt with the bastard as soon as he got wind of its arrival.
Bruce had already taken the lift down to the ground floor with the other men. He chambered in a couple of rounds while he ran for the fire exit.
His talent for guessing likely future outcomes had, until now, had served him well. Being able to predict future encounters with some degree of accuracy had helped him build up this empire from the remains of this city. He had gathered together all the tainted humans from a huge area, and together they’d made their home in this tower block, living life as kings. Granted, the normal humans didn’t have a great life, but at least it was a life free from the danger of the dead.
Everything only went to shit these past few days. His predictive talent had just died on him. At first, he blamed the imminent arrival of those mutated fucks, their psychic ability was off the scale. They must have somehow been able to completely fuck him up. He ran down the stairs, thinking about that girl who so conveniently showed up in one of their storage areas. He suddenly realised that he had no idea who she was. The girl wasn’t one of the underdwellers. She was like him, another tainted human.
“Where the fuck did she come from?”
Osmond reached the main doorway and watched Bruce issue some last minute instructions. “Are you all set?”
Bruce nodded and showed his teeth. “I’ve never been more ready in all my life.”
They ran out of the building. Despite his talents turning to dogshit, Osmond still knew that they were heading right for them. It made sense. Thanks to the dead things chomping down on the under-dwellers, this tower block held the largest concentration of those mutant thing’s food.
He climbed onto a car roof and watched them split up; two of them went in opposite directions leaving them to face only one of the things. That shouldn’t have fucking happened, they were supposed to stay together! It’s what his dream had showed him.
“Mr Stone, it will be safe in the bus.”
He glared down at the idiot who dared to interrupt his thoughts; it was the last guy out of the board room, the one who believed that he had allowed his mates to die in that supermarket. Osmond was so tempted to blow the cunt’s head off. “Jacob, I’m fine up here. It’s you that I’m worried about.” He looked around, trying to locate Bruce. He found him organising the line of shooters in front
of their armoured bus. There was no need for him to shout, his lieutenant sensed Osmond wanting him.
“Bruce, the monsters have deviated to the prediction. Give this man your weapon.” He looked down and saw fear in his eyes and open hate bubbling in the man’s mind. He was no fool. The man knew exactly what Osmond had in store for him. “I need you to get a bit closer.”
The man waited until Bruce had given him the weapon before he shook his head. “No fucking chance,” he snapped, pointing the rifle directly at Osmond. “I’m not going to let you sacrifice me just because you fucked up big time.”
Osmond just smiled down at his little revolutionist. This wasn’t part of the plan either. It felt good to improvise though. Osmond was curious to see if this idiot truly had the balls to squeeze the trigger. “This is going to end badly.”
The man laughed. “Yeah, for you.”
He pulled his finger, crying out in surprise when the gun failed to fire. Bruce cut short the man’s astonishment by punching him in the side of the head, ripping the gun out of his limp hands, then viciously booting him between the legs.
Osmond nodded at Bruce, mentally conveying his request. The man smiled back and dragged the drowsy man out of the compound and through their line of fire. He dropped him beside a post-box, slammed the butt of his rifle into his kneecaps and rushed back to the trench they’d occupied that stretched across the road.
He watched Bruce hurry back over the line and glared at any of the other men who dared to look back. It satisfied him to find that all their thoughts were now guarded. “The enemy is almost upon us. Keep your focus.”
The wounded sergeant had yet to move, Bruce worked him over pretty good. The man knew how to do his job correctly. The last thing, Osmond needed right now was for that traitorous man to start crawling back here, crying like a baby.
His heartbeat increased when he finally saw one of those things crawl over the rooftop. As he expected, his final piece had gripped the monster’s attention. “Wait until it starts to feed before firing. It isn’t stupid and knows that we are here. Any slip will result in that thing worming its way into your brain, and you’ll be the poor bastards who feel its teeth in your flesh.”
It jumped down and crawled over to the bait, using the cars as cover. Osmond frowned, it wasn’t supposed to do that. The monster then dived under a van. He watched in horror as its arm whipped out from under the vehicle and its long fingers wrapped around the man’s ankle. The wounded man chose this moment to wake up. He saw the alien fingers and started to shriek as it pulled him under the van.
The man’s agonising screeching battered Osmond’s mind. He shook his head and tried in vain to block out the terrible noise. He rolled and fell from the top of the car, hitting the ground hard. The sudden pain brought him out of the unexpected trance. He stumbled over to Bruce and saw that he was experiencing the same thing. Osmond shook him, but received no response. He then slapped the man across the cheeks. Bruce’s eyes flickered open. He gazed at Osmond.
“Osmond? It doesn’t want to eat him. Can’t you feel that thing’s lust?” Bruce staggered to his feet. “Oh hell, we’ve got to stop that thing before it’s too late.” He picked up his rifle and fell against the wall of the trench.
Osmond’s men were all rolling about in the dirt with their hands clamped over their ears, silently screaming. That thing out there had them all paralysed. “Bruce, come on, man. I need you to snap out of it. I can’t do this on my own.” The man suppressed a violent shudder as he felt the creature thrust a serrated hollow bone into the shrieking man’s guts.
Every one of his men’s faces contorted in fresh anguish.
“That thing is laying eggs into his body,” gasped Bruce.
Osmond grabbed the man’s shoulders, clambered across the men’s twitching bodies, and climbed out of the trench.
“You need to fight it, Bruce.” Osmond crawled over to the post-box, dragging his rifle behind him. Just for an instant, the mental miasma cleared when the creature momentarily lost control as its tube ejected hundreds of pea sized eggs into the man’s stomach.
Osmond heard the cocking of a weapon and saw that Bruce had joined him. He brought up his own gun. “Fucking kill it,” he growled.
They both opened fire, their rounds tearing into the abomination’s tender flesh. The creature’s sudden mental screeching tore through Osmond’s brain. His finger slipped off the trigger, feeling like his head was about to rupture. After what felt like an eternity, the creature quietly gave up on life and released its mental grip on both Bruce and Osmond.
The man shakily got to his feet and staggered over to the van. It had rolled off the now dead man, exposing his stomach. It had doubled in size already and was still growing. Dark blue fibrous matting covered the bloated flesh.
“We haven’t finished yet,” gasped Bruce, “Can you feel them?”
Osmond nodded, He could feel hundreds of tiny minds, a frenzy of black hate, needing to burst out and consume flesh. Those fuckers would eat everything, there would be no stopping them. They would be like a plague of flying monsters, stripping the meat of anything in their path. He aimed the gun at the man’s head and fired while Bruce turned the man’s huge stomach into a shower of dark flesh as he continued to fire into his guts.
Chapter Sixteen
He jumped off the stone windowsill, and caught the top of the streetlight with his upper arm set. As Raphael hung on, he watched the three surprised looking dead things drop their catch and shuffle into an alleyway, melting into the darkness. He was just as astonished to come across the dead humans as well. Since the arrival of his three siblings, the city’s previous inhabitants had cleared the streets.
“Only two now,” muttered Raphael as he dropped onto the pavement. Conflicting emotions had coursed through his body at the sight of what the human’s weapons were capable of doing to flesh. The two scars on his legs no longer bothered him, but it did remind him that Raphael wasn’t quite so invulnerable. Watching those armed men turning his brother and the host into wet scarlet detritus had served as a timely reminder not to underestimate the humans.
Raphael ran across the street, away from that alleyway and the carcass of the dog. He jumped through an open ground floor window, thankful to be out of sight. The remaining two had not detected his tentative mental probes. The death of their sibling and their own urge to reproduce consumed their thoughts. Even if they were aware of Raphael’s observations, their own agenda took priority. Nevertheless, Raphael was taking no risks. He still could not believe just how big they were now. Raphael’s body had bulked out, but the remaining two were still twice as large as he was.
As he picked his way through the darkened shop, moving towards the counter, Raphael sensed those three dead things emerging from their hiding place. The scent of blood was too great to ignore, and that was fine with him. Their presence in the street should help to camouflage his own scent while he picked up his unexpected gift and prepared for his own offensive.
He didn’t have much time before the other two were ready to lay. Raphael’s initial plan of letting them seek him out now seemed irrelevant. What was the use of playing hide and seek below ground after their eggs had hatched? There would be nothing left for him to eat, even if Raphael did kill them both. His other gift would be safe as long as she didn’t venture from the safety of the nest.
Raphael jumped over the glass counter and opened the door that led into the backroom. Nobody else had been in here while he was gone. He opened the door that lead up to the living quarters and climbed the stairs, scuttling into the first room he came to, thankful to see that the woman had not moved from where he’d left her. Why did he not attach more importance to his siblings need to create? His phallus expanded at the sight of the human’s naked body, it certainly occupied his thoughts. He quickly gathered up her clothes and started to dress her, dredging up old memories of his mother performing this action in order to ensure he was doing it correctly.
Once the tedio
us tack was complete, Raphael pushed his mind eye inside her head and deposited an image of him eating the woman’s legs. The woman’s eyes snapped open, her terrified gaze found him staring back at her, and she shrieked.
“It’s best not to make much noise,” he said, watching her shaking fingers frantically search the area beside her body. “Your weapon is propped up against the wall next to the bed, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
The woman sat up and pushed her hair back. “I fell asleep?”
He nodded, resisting the urge to peek into her confused mind, just to check that she really was not aware what he’d done to her. Raphael jumped off the table and scuttled over to the window. That would not be a good idea. He gazed outside, watching those three dead things consume their meal, keeping his back to the woman, waiting for her mental defences to rise.
“How long was I out for?”
“Are you ready to continue?” he asked, throwing her the crossbow. Raphael did not see the point of answering her question. He moved away from the window and jumped onto the bed, settling down at the edge. “They have entered the city. The humans that you allowed to live have already killed one.”
“Good,” she replied.
Raphael pushed his mind eye, trying to access her thoughts. Her smile quickly dissolved into a frown. “Good, your defences might protect you.” He leaned forward. “Before we do leave though, I’d very much like to hear how you knew that I wouldn’t just eat you.”
He had already extracted most of the information while Raphael was fucking her unconscious body. Through her mind, he saw the woman’s settlement and the faces of her leaders. Seeing another creature like his mother sitting amongst her natural food surprised Raphael. It was not normal for prey to cohabit with food. With his mind linked to hers, he listened to the leaders give the woman her instructions.
Her leaders ordered the woman to seek him out, but how did they know of his existence and what he looked like? They even knew where he would be when the woman reached the city. They believed that cooperation was the key to their strength. It made them very powerful.