Morpho

by Philip Palmer

  Cheyney’s choice: Kings of Leon, Sex on Fire. The dance floor slowly filled. The dancing became a swarming. Fists began punching, crotches were grabbed. A raunchy crowd-pleaser, this one, and the crowd loved it.

  ‘Yeah-hoh, your sex is on fire!’ the wedding guests sang.

  Hayley remembered Jane Carter’s whispered words: ‘Touch me.’

  Hayley remembered: A hand outstretched, fingers splayed.

  Hayley remembered: Jane Carter’s pale face, expressionless, a blank mask that had tried to convey to her an emotion, but which emotion?

  Friendship. Was she really offering me friendship?’

  A new song played: Guns N’ Roses, Sweet Child of Mine.

  Why did I do those terrible things to her? Was I really that afraid?

  She remembered Franco’s explanation of the history of his kind. ‘Humans hate us. They hunt us. They torture us. They treat us worse than animals. All we want is to be left alone.’

  The song played:

  ‘Sweet child of mine

  Sweet love of mine.’

  The song ended. Now Ed Sheeran sang: ‘Sing’.

  ‘Dance?’ She blinked, looked up. It was Liam.

  ‘Nah, fuck off,’ she advised him.

  ‘Pity dance, that’s all I’m offering.’

  She tried not to smile but that didn’t work.

  ‘Go dance with your wife.’

  ‘I’ve got my whole life ahead of me to dance with my wife. Tonight, I want to dance with my bloody sister in law. Come on, darling. Show me your moves.’

  Hayley stared at him, inexpressibly touched.

  Then she started weeping again. Tears poured down her cheeks. Liam was stunned.

  He pulled her to her feet and gave her a hug. A big-brotherly hug. Over his shoulder Hayley could see Cheyney beaming at her; one big happy family, this was making her night.

  ‘I know I know, you’re happy for Cheyney.’

  ‘I’m pregnant,’ she snuffled.

  ‘What!’

  ‘No! No!’ She’d got that SO wrong. ‘I’m not pregnant, what I mean is, I’ve been fertilised by another woman’s egg, so that makes me – makes me –’

  ‘Drunk?’ Liam hazarded.

  She snuffled again, broke free.

  ‘Are you on something, darling? Because if you are, that’s fine by me. I just want to –’

  She ran from him.

  Pregnant? Don’t be stupid, Hayley. I’m not pregnant. I’m as far from being pregnant as you can be. What I am is something different. What I am is –

  I’m, yeah. I’m an – I’m – what I am is –

  She couldn’t bring herself to think the word.

  I’m – different.

  Even more different than I was before.

  Alien. I’m an alien.

  The roof terrace. Drunk, again. Alone, as always. The full moon was unblinking above the town of Hebden Bridge. The stars flickered like Christmas decorations, except they weren’t. They were distant stars. Millions of them, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, a massive universe of stars up there. Suns and planets. And creatures living there too.

  Hayley knew the theory. Granted the vast size of the universe and the durability of life, it was a miracle that not once, never, had a alien visitor come to this planet. So many stars, and none of them bore life?

  Not so unlikely then, Franco’s story. That a thousand years or so ago –

  Ah, yes – Scorpions, Winds of Change. She could hear the music wafting out of the windows of the reception suite, into the night air.

  ‘The future’s in the air

  I can feel it everywhere.’

  The time has come for the midnight dance. The cake has been cut and the slices have been dispersed. Cake triangles sit on paper plates barely eaten. The tables are cluttered with empty glasses, slick pools of spilled beer shine under the ceiling globes. Pharrell Williams, happy as fuck, has been and gone and now John Legend sings of Ordinary People.

  The dancers dance. Hayley, back in the Waterfront Hall, sits and watches.

  I should join in. I should. Join in. I really should.

  She doesn’t. She sits. She watches.

  Billy Franco was at her shoulder again.

  ‘Can I walk you home?’ he asks.

  Her body language said no.

  ‘Will you meet me tomorrow then?’

  No.

  ‘Can we talk?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘We have to talk.’

  ‘No. No more talking. I never want to see you again. You or any of your –’ She hissed the words: ‘– monstrous kind.’

  ‘You’re one of us now, Hayley. You –’

  ‘Not possible. I have a Mam. I have a dad. Had.’

  ‘One of us. Genetic material has been transmitted into you, through the hatching of –’

  ‘Birds have eggs. I’m human.’

  ‘Please, let me walk you home.’

  She thought about it. Eventually, she nodded.

  In the day time this is a quiet idyllic Yorkshire town.

  But at night Hebden Bridge comes alive. Every pub is full. There are pissheads at the bar tanking it, oldtimers at their hallowed tables telling tall tales. Hikers sit in the snugs of old pubs, sipping real ale, aching from the day’s punishing schedule.

  Teenagers mill on the streets, blagging booze from off-licences. By the canal, wide-eyed tourists from America and Canada and the South of England admire the history and quaintness of this quaint historic Northern town.

  For local folk with aspirations, it’s the perfect spot for a wedding.

  Tonight the full moon has dark clouds framing it. Stars cluster in the sky – there’s nowhere near the amount of light pollution you get in the city. And, invisible to the naked eye and to military radar, the Nighthawks hover like kestrels on an updraft, missiles primed; keeping Yorkshire safe for humankind.

  On the ground the hit team have taken their positions. The two undercover agents continue to report on the progress of the wedding reception. One is pretending to be a cousin of one of the bridesmaids, the other is a waiter like Franco. Their whispered reports tell the squad that Hayley Bradford has exited the party and is lingering outside the Town Hall, in the company of an IC1 male who has been positively ID’d as Franco, William. She is TWP; he is to be taken alive.

  Two birds, one stone. An exfiltration and a collateral damage.

  The three commandments for this kind of operation are speed and containment and efficient disposal. There are two vans parked outside the town hall, to take the bodies away. And when the snatch takes place, a firework display will go off in the car park of the Shoulder of Mutton to create noise and distraction.

  Marlowe is watching on a monitor in his office in the Calls. The window is open; he can feel the night air, and can hear the occasional night time revellers on their way to or from somewhere in Leeds. Once, he muses, he would have been out there, on the ground, with the hit squad. But he has managerial responsibilities now.

  ‘This is Echo Three, Target sighted, all units take their positions, Over.’

  ‘Roger that, Echo Three, all units proceed at your discretion, this is Control, signing Out.’

  ‘It’s cold.’

  ‘You want my jacket?’

  ‘Sokay, I don’t really feel the cold.’

  ‘Make your mind up.’

  Hayley smiled. ‘I mean, I do feel the cold but it doesn’t bother me. It’s the sun I hate. I peel if there’s an advert for Majorca on the telly.’

  ‘Where’s your B&B?’

  ‘This way.’

  They walked away from the Town Hall, towards her B&B, enjoying the night. Franco didn’t take her arm but he if he had, she woudn’t have minded. She had forgotten, in all the flurry of the night, his earlier threat to murder her. She didn’t even care, because she was very drunk, that he was technically her father. She felt strange in the long gown, not a bit like herself, but it was nice. They could see the canal now.<
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  The path was suddenly very busy; a bunch of youths were blocking their way. And out of nowhere a policeman in uniform appeared, smiling. No, he was Community Liaison, not a real copper. ‘Good evening, sir, madam. Are you with the wedding party?’

  ‘Yes, we are.’

  ‘We’ve had some trouble, you see. Some lads rucking. Best to go back, the other way.’

  ‘Right, sure.’

  ‘Evening, officer,’ said Billy Franco.

  ‘Right you are, lad.’

  They turned, but as they did so some of the youths walked around them, then stopped, forming a semicircle, blocking the way.

  Then the skies erupted in flame; a huge bang rocked the silence. Fireworks.

  ‘That’s nice, is that for Chey –’

  The uniformed copper was holding a taser; he fired it at Hayley. She had a moment to glimpse what was happening, and then her body was convulsing.

  She fell to her knees. She puked. She couldn’t move, except for her rickety trembling. One of the youths moved forward and put handcuffs on her, very fast. She was vomiting, yet she was choked up too. Tears burned her eyes. She forced her head up and saw hazily that Franco had been tasered too, by a second uniformed copper. He was puking out a thin stream of vomit in front of him. Then the copper and two of the youths grabbed him and tried to cuff him.

  Hayley’s vision blurred again. Not the tears this time, it was just that Franco moved so quickly. He backpunched one of the youths and there was a crack like wood breaking. He picked up the other lad and threw him – literally threw him – across the pavement. The lad seemed to be suspended in air for an age. Then he crashed on to the hard cobbles and was still.

  Another ‘youth’ who looked as if he was in his thirties stepped forward with a baton and smashed Franco in the mouth. Then again in the skull. Bones cracked. Hayley screamed – but a gag was being pulled over her mouth. The skies erupted again; a snowflake of light exploded and turned into a kaleidoscope of falling colours. A second huge firework rained purple light. A third huge firework came a second later; purple rain gave way to exploding red fireballs.

  The sound was deafening; Hayley added it all up and got four. She tried to focus on her surroundings; she realised they had been cleverly bunched in on the narrow pathway, hidden from view of walkers in either direction. And as far as any passers-by were concerned, this was just a couple of coppers coping with a gang of angry drunks. Par for the course on a Saturday night in this part of Yorkshire.

  ‘In the van with them,’ said the Community Liaison copper, and then his face exploded. Hayley saw Franco take a step back – and realised he must have leaped five feet to punch the sergeant.

  Hayley carried on thinking it through. These coppers weren’t coppers, and the hoodies weren’t hoodies either. This wasn’t an arrest. She couldn’t let herself –

  Hayley spat out the gag. And she screamed.

  Then she got to her feet and her eyes cleared, and she clapped her hands in front of her, so hard she felt the air flinch. She had been wearing handcuffs but now she wasn’t; she must have broken them with her convulsive arm movement. She saw there was a snapped chain dangling from one wrist. One of the fake coppers swung a baton at her head and she dodged the blow and kicked his feet away from him, and stomped him, and his head burst, like a ripe fruit struck with a mallet. Franco stood beside her, shoulder to shoulder.

  ‘Leave us al –’ he said, then one of the youths shot him.

  It was an automatic pistol, firing a fast burst of bullets; Franco’s body was punched with holes. But he was still standing. Another youth stood behind him, holding a strange device, a wire connected to two sticks; and he wrapped the wire around Franco’s neck and pulled. At the same moment, he put his foot against Franco’s back and kicked, convulsively. It was a savagely powerful move. In an instant the wire ripped through the neck and Franco’s head was severed from its body and fell off, to bounce on the ground. His headless body slowly fell, spraying out arterial blood. Hayley whimpered.

  A baton hit her on the head and she blacked out for an instant. Then she blinked and she was seeing stars and the man with the piano wire was behind her now, and the wire was biting into her throat. She felt an artery burst. Blood was gushing out. She was dying. It was all –

  No I won’t let you do this.

  Hayley’s body was vividly alive. She could feel the pain from the wire; she could hear her blood spurting out, she could sense her body rocking with the thump thump of her heart beat; and her arteries were roaring like cataracts tumbling off a cliff. And then her skin itched, and she realised her Celtic Cross tattoo on her arm was blazing hot, and she thought about the butterfly tattoo under her chin, her beautiful iridescent-blue Morpho butterfly from the Amazon, and she breathed the breath of her life into it.

  The killer put his foot in Hayley’s back and prepared to kick. He wasn’t aware of the skin under her chin flapping and twisting. He didn’t realise that the blue Morpho butterfly was shimmering like iron turning indigo in the heat of a forge. He wasn’t conscious of the fact that the butterfly tattoo had detached itself from Hayley’s flesh, ripping itself off; or that it flew up into the air faster than lightning and landed unerringly on his face.

  All the killer knew is that one moment he was garrotting his hapless victim; the next, some flapping creature had ripped his eyeball out with sharp claws. He screamed and relaxed his grip. The two-dimensional blue butterfly flapped again and his other eyeball was pecked away. The assassin flailed his arms, like a scarecrow scaring off a parliament of crows, and stumbled backwards.

  I’m alive.

  Hayley was experiencing a weird time distortion; time was moving slowly, very slowly, which meant she was able to map the geometry of the scene in her head and consider her options. What next? Run? Fight? Save Franco?

  She rolled forward, towards his body-less head, and she picked it up by the ponytail. The mouth was silently screaming, the eyes were blazing with rage – it was still alive! She saw filaments emerging and writhing from the neck stump, damp with blood, struggling to form into legs.

  Hayley rolled the head towards the body, like a bowling ball aimed at skittles. Her aim was true. And in a trice, the legged head scuttled up on to the shoulders of the decapitated body; the filaments plunged into the twitching torso, growing into his flesh like roots in damp earth; and an instant later Franco was whole, and alive.

  Then they all shot her.

  There were a dozen or more of them still standing, a bizarre blend of coppers in uniforms and hoodies with stuck-on acne, all of them carrying handguns and they were shooting her. It was like being buffeted by a hurricane; she couldn’t even feel the bullets, she just felt herself shaken and rocked and when a bullet went through her eye she thought that was it. She said her goodbyes, silently.

  The shooting stopped. Hayley was a statue made of wounds, drenched in blood.

  ‘No more,’ said a gasping voice. ‘No more.’

  It was Franco. Standing upright. Like Hayley, he was a scarlet tower; he should have been dead, he absolutely should have been dead. But life persisted in him. It was there in his eyes, his hate-filled eyes.

  And the blood on the cobbled ground all around him began to sizzle.

  And the blood on his skin steamed and sizzled too, like scarlet sweat.

  And the sizzling blood on the ground and on his skin sprang into the air and it coalesced into a cloud, and it billowed out as red mist, as if Franco were a wizard surrounded by demonic fog. And his eyes were still full of hate and weeping blood; and that blood too was alive and angry. And when he moved his hand, the blood compressed, and formed into tiny capsules that hovered like tiny bombers. Compacted tiny blood corpuscles with the density of steel.

  Hayley saw, and understood. And her own blood was around her too, a protecting cloak that at the beckon of her will coalesced and turned into dark scarlet bullets.

  She thought her thought; Franco thought his thought too, at exactly the same
instant.

  And the blood bullets fired.

  Another snowdrop of light exploded in the sky but by now the game was up; two dozen phone calls had been made to the police reporting gunfire.

  Meanwhile, the cobbled ground around the canal was awash with blood; the bodies of the fake coppers and the fake hoodies were strewn this way and that, faces frozen in shock, bodies butchered and rent by supersonic bullets of blood.

  It was as if the hand of God had smote them all, all these sinners and murderers with their fake coloration and phoney accents; miraculously transforming a cabal of cold-eyed killers into dead flies, crushed, by wanton boys.

  And Franco and Hayley were gone.

  The waters of the Rochdale Canal shuddered as the movement of their bodies created ripples that lapped the stone embankment.

  Above those trembling waters a tiny creature hovered, an impossible being of iridescent blue with powerful wings, a butterfly that could see and hear and fly but had no organs, no brain, no depth.

  Below it, the waters of the Rochdale Canal turned dully red under the sheen of street lights as Hayley and Franco swam to freedom.

  They swam for two hours bumping along the canal bed, with no need to breathe, and as they swam their wounds slowly healed. Bullet wounds in their skulls and torsos and limbs, cracked bones, ripped flesh, even Hayley’s long-dead eyeball. All were healed as the two sentient swarms of microparasites from an alien planet regenerated their human host organisms.

  As they swam, hugging the canal’s muddy breast, frog-kicking at a pace that would have put to shame an Olympic champion, the infected bodies spat out bullets and left a train of spent metal slugs nearly six miles long.

  Eventually, far outside the town, among the rolling hills of West Yorkshire, the two wedding guests clambered sodden out of the bloodied canal and crashed on to the tow path. They were on open land now, far from any houses or roads. The butterfly had recced the scene shrewdly for them, guided by Hayley’s controlling mind.

  Hayley was in the air, darting on updrafts, peering all around; and also she was on the ground, flat on her back, breathing heavily, in, out, in, out. Wondering why she was panting so much when she no longer needed to breathe.