Spawn of Man

by Terry Farricker

  Inside Frank’s head there was an explosion of memories. Hundreds of recollected moments filled the empty spaces inside him, sounds, smells, all imploding and folding into a kaleidoscope of images, like reflections bouncing off thousands of fragments of shattered glass. And so many wonderful promises melting over his soul, as sweet and familiar as the Sunday morning bells of his youth, drifting across the hills, ghost-like and captivating him.

  Alex was moving crab-like towards the soldier, screaming, ‘Frank, Frank, no, please don’t listen!’

  Then there was a shrill hiss from below Alex and she turned quickly to face the sound, having to realign her tenuous hold on the wall. One of the huge spiders was following them, its legs skimming across the sticky blackness as if it was navigating its way across a diaphanous web.

  Alex looked at Frank again and cried, ‘Frank, snap out of it soldier! We’re under attack for Christ’s sake!’

  Frank stared at her, but his eyes still seemed vacant, as they followed her pointing finger towards the spider. Then, almost as a reflex action he slipped the rifle from his back and took aim at the creature with one hand as it climbed nearer. The spider was deliberating between its two targets, its teeth chattering, the razor points dovetailing together and separating again in rapid succession. Frank waited, letting his breathing slow and feeling his heart lessen its pace as he squeezed the trigger, keeping the rifle as in line with the thing as was possible from his precarious position.

  The bullet scythed through one of the spider’s fore legs, completely removing it as a thin gush of oily black filth sprayed from the vestiges of its limb. The spider was sent into a frenzied circling motion, teeth snapping, spitting and with legs dancing as it tried to compensate for the loss. Then it steadied and began to climb again.

  Frank began to aim a second time, then turned to look up towards Alex and shouted, his voice resolute now, ‘Don’t give up, Alexandra, keep on climbing, don’t let it all be in vain!’

  And he fired again, this time the bullet entering the spider’s bloated body and causing another jet of the black liquid to rise into the air.

  Alex screamed, ‘Frank, climb to me, climb up to me! You can make it!’

  But the spider was now close to Frank and he had shouldered his weapon and was facing it, his feet planted on footholds and one hand gripping a small ledge.

  Alex cried again, ‘Frank, no!’ as the spider crawled onto Frank, two dagger-like legs poised above him, teeth crashing together like the retort of a machinegun. Then Frank clasped the spider’s legs, even as they speared his shoulder and chest, holding onto them tightly as blood flowed from his wounds. The two figures swayed as equilibrium transferred and exchanged and they appeared engaged in a tender embrace until Frank fell backwards, pulling the spider with him into the void.

  ‘No!’ wailed Alex as the nothingness accepted Frank and the spider, embracing them just as readily as Frank had held the spider.

  Alex held onto her fragile grip and her legs and back arched as they became increasingly inflexible due to the unforgiving demands of the climb. She looked down and could not estimate how far she had climbed, probably further than she thought, as her arms and legs had moved as if motorized, propelling her ever upwards, and she felt like one of the spiders scaling improbable angles.

  There was a sound like crisp folded paper being torn in two and the blackness where Frank had been enveloped yawned open several feet. Alex swung to face the aperture, almost losing her footing, and caught a glimpse of white, a flash of bleached bone, crumpled and folded. And the void ejected the picked and stripped skeleton of the giant spider, spewing it out like a bad taste, and it fell away, turning and drifting, breaking to pieces, no more substantial now than a handful of petals.

  Alex watched until the last remnant had disappeared from view, then turned and continued to climb. But as she pulled another protrusion from the inky black material of the wall, she heard a buzzing, faint, yet growing louder. A caustic smell streamed over her that seemed to bounce off the flat surface of the wall all around her and she felt vibrations permeate her body, a not unpleasant tingle on her nerve endings. She turned her head and identified the source. At first she thought it was an airship of kinds, but as it floated nearer she perceived it to be a flying bomb, two stubby bat-like wings gave it flight and these were powered by archaic-looking propellers.

  The top of the bomb was festooned with more of the soulless creatures that had made up the ground force that had swarmed into the trench and they stood behind a railing, peering through field glasses. The airborne shell was a dark grey, almost black sphere and the whirring propellers were edging the craft closer to the wall and Alex. Alex almost laughed at the cartoon nature of the machine, almost a child’s representation of what a bomb should look like. Then without notice the wings detached and fell away and the bomb hung insidiously in the air. The creatures jumped and leaped excitedly as the huge vessel lopped to one side then dipped its nose, flinging half a dozen of the creatures into oblivion.

  Then the bomb began to plummet downwards, gathering speed and discarding the creature shells, as one by one they were prized from where they gripped the railings that ringed the top of the craft, and Alex was surprised to see these things did not pass into the black wall but were dashed against it. Almost too late it dawned on Alex what bombs do, what function they are designed to perform, and she pressed herself against the void and strengthened her grip. The blackness welcomed this new closeness and begged her to slip into its world, promising acceptance, nurture and solace, but even as Alex felt herself succumbing to the syrupy voices in her head, the explosion ripped the air apart.

  The blast was immense, decimating the trench for miles in both directions and the approaching land too, and it discharged a wave of heat and debris vertically, rushing up the wall at break-neck speeds, without breaching its tranquil surface. The tempest hit Alex like a wave of hot steel and although she was flipped onto her back she did not relinquish her hold on the wall. She felt skin shred from her body in roasted ribbons as she prepared to ignite into a thousand charred segments. But just as the pain became intolerable, the gust subsided and left Alex ragged, burnt and hanging by one hand to the ledge she had earlier pulled from the blackness.

  Summoning every semblance of strength and determination, Alex swung back to face the wall. She held herself close to its surface and willed herself to heal, sobbing and closing her eyes tightly. She opened her eyes when she heard a muffled noise, like the expanding of a balloon. Then she saw the blackness pushing outwards and forming into the shape of a face, featureless and stretching from the void like molded plastic. The face turned to Alex, the skin seeming like rubber as it pulled to allow the act and for a moment it looked like Jake.

  Its mouth opened, but between the lips there only existed more of the hollowness as it spoke in a low, hurried whisper, ‘Mummy! Mummy! It’s so dark in here. I’m so scared. Please come and hold my hand. I miss you Mummy.’ And below the face a small hand was fashioned from the black, as it spoke again imploringly, ‘Hold my hand, Mummy, hold my hand.’

  Alex took hold of the hand. An explosion of loss detonated in the pit of her stomach, as if all the grief and anger had been combusted within her. She cried out as her very essence was burnt by the shock wave and the small hand began to pull Alex into the void. As she sank, the physical and emotional hurting began to subside and now she was face to face with the image carved from the blackness.

  She closed her eyes as it spoke again, but its voice now carried a harder edge to it, ‘Wash away all the pain, all the disappointment, all the hurt and loss, Alexandra, all of it!’

  Alex’s mind was suddenly wrenched away from the brink of succumbing to absorption into the nothingness. She opened her eyes and looked at the face. ‘Don’t you mean, Mummy?’

  The pull of the small hand changed its property and became a drag as the face shouted, ‘Sink into us, Alex! We want you! We need you!’

  But Alex broke free and
in doing so, all the pain that had been momentarily alleviated came rushing back to her. She reeled as if dealt a blow and almost fell, but managed to maintain her grip.

  She looked at the face again and spoke through gritted teeth, ‘Jake, Mummy’s coming,’ and she began to climb again as the face and hand slid back into the void.

  This time when Alex looked up she saw light, hazy and frail but definite and reachable and she began to weep as she repeated in a whisper, ‘Jake, Mummy’s coming.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ‘Open your eyes mister, open your eyes.’

  Frank heard the words through layers of competing sounds. He did not want to open his eyes because that meant leaving the dreamlike place that had longed for him and accepted him with open arms. He had been content in that unconditional serenity and if the woman Alexandra had been right, it was the only harmony he had experienced in over a century. However, his name being called had burst his cocoon and his eyes opened languidly, slowly focusing on the child kneeling over him.

  Tentacles of solace, long and restraining, still held him and although he worked his mouth there was no sound.

  Finally the words escaped, ‘Jake? Is that you child? Jake?’

  Jake was crying and his little hands still pushed at Frank’s chest, willing him awake. Frank made to rise but was stopped by a series of coils and springs that bounced his head back to the horizontal, a bed, or rather the underside of a bed.

  Jake, satisfied now that the man was awake, pointed to the covers that hung down to form a screen around them and whispered through his tears, ‘The bad nurse with one hand!’

  Jake had progressed as far as the last bed in the big room and Mary had allowed it, purposely nearly catching the boy at every stage until he had run out of options. Under the last bed he had been alone for a moment and then a grown-up had appeared from nowhere. Jake immediately regarded him as an ally and Frank took hold of the boy’s arm reassuringly.

  Mary spoke, her voice softened by mock concern, yet laced with menace and scorn. ‘Child, there is nowhere left to run, why don’t you come out? Nurse has a big surprise for you!’

  From under the skirt of the covers Frank could see the big surprise. The saw Mary had used to sever her new hand dangled by her side, held in her twitching grip, the implement’s bloodied edge shining wetly as it swung.

  Mary threw her head back and a hysterical laugh rang through the room, bouncing off the bare walls like a stray bullet.

  ‘Child, come to nurse, no need to be afraid. I only want to make some small… alterations. Nothing at all really. Maybe something off here and there, done and dusted in no time!’ and the cackling noise grew louder, filling the ward, creeping under the beds and clawing at the windows. A flurry of flowers fell quickly to the tiled floor, drenched in blood and unhindered by breeze or gale, and Frank watched them land with little slapping sounds.

  Next the nurse’s knees appeared as she began to crouch low before the folds of a pinafore dress hid them, dark red stains discoloring the material. Then a hand grabbed the covers that concealed Frank and Jake. Frank grabbed Jake and pulled him behind his own body, protecting him from whatever came next. The saw came next, sweeping under the bed in a broad, exploratory arc and finding the side of Frank’s neck. The rough teeth of the saw pulled Frank’s skin apart in a small, deep gash and he felt the warmth of his own blood running down his neck and under the collar of his tunic.

  Frank gently turned the child to face the wall and whispered softly, ‘Close your eyes, Jake, we are going to play a game.’

  Then he slipped the rifle from his shoulder. Mary felt the resistance as the saw’s blade caught briefly on something and saw the fresh flecks of blood on the teeth as it emerged from under the bed.

  She smiled with malevolent satisfaction and spat, ‘Oh, little rat, now I’ve cornered you, I’m going to hack you into pieces and stuff my pillows with your flesh!’ and she threw back the covers and peered under the bed.

  As her face loomed in the space between floor and bedstead, Frank blasted the malicious grin from point blank range, effectively removing her lower jaw and the left-hand side of her throat. Mary was sent sliding backwards on her knees, as if she had fallen whilst skating on a pond, careering into the next bed along and then plunging forward, her forehead hitting the tiled floor sickeningly.

  Jake whimpered at the rifle’s retort and closed his eyes tighter, but Frank pulled him close and assured him, ‘Everything is fine, Jake, everything is fine. We are going to stop hiding now and go and find your mother, just you and I.’

  Jake hugged Frank and sobbed, ‘Mummy, let’s find Mummy now.’

  Frank slid from beneath the bed carrying Jake, the boy’s head buried in his shoulder. Frank held the rifle, finger still on the trigger, and approached the prostrate figure of the nurse, who lay face down. Making sure Jake’s head was still averted, Frank kicked the nurse’s shoulder lightly with his boot and covered the back of her head with his gun. Nothing. He did it again. Still no movement. He levered his boot under her ribcage and turned her over onto her back. A hand grabbed his ankle and a blackened tongue, swollen and ragged, lolled from the remnants of the nurse’s mouth. The eyes searched from side to side as if they now held the only spark of dynamism. Then the transplanted hand holding Frank’s ankle released its grip, acting independently of the nurse now.

  Frank stepped over the body and walked along the rows of empty beds and out of the room. He left the ward and made his way to the main reception hall. It had been well over a century since he had walked these corridors and his mind was teeming with concepts and supposition. Had he really created this mirage and was the trench his umbilical cord that would have ultimately led him here? And were all the things the woman Alexandra had divulged true, especially regarding his father? He rounded the last corner, before he would again stand in the grand reception hall, the child Jake in his arms, his face concealed, as if he believed doing so would render him invisible.

  Frank took the first step into the hall and his boot found an abyss where the polished wood floor should have been. Unbalanced by the sudden pitching forward of his weight as the ground vanished, Frank twisted violently, trying not to transfer to Jake the momentum that was now condemning him. As momentum carried Frank away from Jake, the child landed safely on the edge of the precipice that now formed the perimeter of the main hall. Frank felt the awful impetus of the fall well in his stomach as the floor shot away from him, his hands flailing and grabbing at the jagged edge of the chasm. He would only have a window of half a second before plummeting and as the main hall was elevated away from him, Frank slapped both hands on the broken edge of the tiled floor.

  The muscles in his arms groaned as he hung in limbo, unable to summon the strength to pull his body upward but refusing to let go of his slender hold on the edge of the crater. Then he heard Jake’s pitiful whimpers from the floor above and he realized he had to make a decision quickly. In a few minutes what little strength he retained would dissipate and he would be lost. He did not comprehend enough about his circumstances to appreciate what the consequences would be.

  He accepted now that he had died and inhabited a plane of existence beyond the physical realms. But could he die twice? Or would a fall into this chasm only result in broken bone, fractures and punctures that would heal in time? And who determined the boundaries? If he himself dictated aspects of his reality now, then why could he not invest himself with super-human attributes? It seemed his definition of actuality somehow tempered the limitations that governed this dominion. But maybe those limitations could be redefined with application of will?

  And so Frank dug his fingers into the hard tiled floor, dug them in until the surface below his fingers warped under the pressure and finger-shaped indentations were generated amidst small plumes of powder and dust. He dug his fingers into the ground until blood turned the plaster residue into a red paste, as from behind him, deep in the pit, a roar resounded as if Hell was heralding the rele
ase of its multitudes. Frank craned his neck to see what had produced the noise and glimpsed the curved, dull metal surface of an object pushing its way up from the depths of the void. The noise was painful and the sonorous thud beat out a disturbing rhythm that was accompanied by screeches as the metal surface of the object ripped at the rock it now emerged from.

  The booming echoed throughout the fibers of Frank’s body and sound waves hit him like hammer falls, as he desperately pulled his body fully out of the hole and rolled onto his back next to Jake. The machine rising from the chasm forced columns of debris into the air, coating Frank and Jake in a layer of fine rubble, and Frank sought to cover the boy’s head and face as he scrambled them away from the brink of the pit and towards one of the walls. Amidst the clouds of grit and broken tile that blossomed and swirled around the opening, the top-most section of a spherical shape had become manifest. The noise built into a crescendo of crashing and grinding, but as the sphere excavated more of its surroundings, a whirring, spinning sound established itself, like the high speed drone of an enormous drill, boring out cave-sized tunnels deep inside the earth.

  Frank sat in awe, watching the thing divulge itself, the small child cradled in his arms. The urge to flee had not yet settled in his brain and he was still captivated by the spectacle. The object was now revealing itself as a cage-like configuration, hugely proportioned with a diameter exceeding fifty feet. The bars of the cage were sculptured from an array of metal and human bone, intertwined and in some places fused. Around the perimeter of the sphere was a series of ultra-sharp blades, circumnavigating the globe, slicing and changing direction randomly like magnets attracted to each other before their polarity shifted and repelled. These blades seemed to move of their own volition and appeared unconnected to, or powered by, any apparatus on the shell of the sphere.