Instantly she was back on the stem, moving forward quickly. She felt the loose fleshy covering under her feet and in other parts the hard metal, she smelled the heat and tasted the blood and as she penetrated the thin screen that was the portal, Alex was aware of tremendous pressure bearing down on her body, constricting and compressing. The part of her that broke through the gateway experienced the yearning sense of loss that Alex had endured whilst climbing in the void; the same sensation of being pulled in, of being claimed by the very material around her and of being forced to empathize with its longing.
She felt her awareness being sucked at, and it was only with a concentrated degree of will that she was able to remain in some degree of control. She felt as if she had been turned inside out and all the sticky, oozing contents of her body acted now as adhesive, keeping her fixed to the surface of the portal.
When she did break free the pain was immense and all consuming, but was tempered with such a feeling of pure elation at existing, that Alex wept and it was her child’s gentle motivation that steadied her again. She focused now on the room on the other side of the gateway.
The stem ended in a head, with both organic and synthetic segments visible, but with a smooth, white, plastic face that seemed to be crumpling now, as if heated in a furnace. And directly in front of the face, staring at it and restrained by foul, skinless monsters, was her husband Robert.
Alex screamed his name, opening her eyes, and the link vanished. When Alex had sufficiently recovered to turn her attention back to Frank, the man had already gone. He was standing on the far side of the sphere now, just below it and wearing the same look of wonderment as before. Alex began to call his name when there was a disturbance in the pit below. Tapping into the instinctive nature that she now seemed to possess, she crouched and slid Jake all the way round to her rear, making sure she was between her son and the pit.
There was a sound like a huge rush of wind, as if a blizzard was raging in the void of the pit, and Alex felt herself being pushed back by the force of the storm. Then there was a second of nothing, no noise and no activity in the crater, nothing, before the wind reversed and nearly sucked Alex into the abyss. Then a loud whooshing noise, as if something had passed her at tremendous speed, and one of the monstrous spiders she had battled in the trench was ejected from the blackness of the pit.
The thing landed nimbly on its steel tipped legs, the impact making a ‘clinking’ sound and, although eye-less, it scuttled three hundred and sixty degrees as if reconnoitering its new position. It had fallen a dozen feet from where Frank stood and it immediately sensed the man and lowered its black, sleek body inches from the floor, extending two slender, thrice-jointed legs in front of it, as if tasting the air.
Frank swung round, alerted by the tapping sound of the spider’s limbs, but it was already too late and the creature had reared up on four of its legs, jabbing two of its forelegs at Frank. The blades that edged each of the spider’s limbs were razor sharp and keen and now two of them struck Frank, one a glancing blow carving the flesh on his calf and one slicing through his thigh to pin him where he stood. The spider’s gash mouth, armed with its row upon row of lethally sharp teeth, bore down on Frank, slavering and whining, but as the spider narrowed its focus, Frank brought his rifle to bear on the beast’s under-carriage.
The weapon pumped two rounds into the thing’s body, both of which exploded from the black dome of its back along with an oil-like discharge. The spider shrieked, lifting Frank from the ground, still impaled on the spike-edged limb, as Frank forced the rifle barrel into its gaping mouth and sent two more bullets down its throat. Alex frantically searched the area surrounding her and Jake and spotted a metal pipe about the size of a snooker cue but considerably thicker protruding from the edge of the pit. It had obviously been ripped upwards when the sphere had broken through and shredded the floor of the hall and now curled out of the crater like a snake responding to a charmer’s flute.
Without balancing the probabilities of whether she would be able to accomplish such a task, Alex took a two-handed grip on the pipe and tore it from its housing.
She then turned and knelt and spoke to her child. Jake had seen the spider and was frozen to Alex’s back, eyes closed, gripping his mother’s belt, but he was not crying. ‘Listen to me, honey. You’re a very brave little man, Jakey, and I need you to help protect Mummy from the monsters. It’s just make-believe, like in a film or one of your hollo-discs, Dinosaur Island. Jakey, you must stay behind Mummy, very close, very close, hold on tight. Okay, Jakey?’
The little boy nodded and resumed his position behind Alex, dutifully holding onto his mother as Alex, brandishing the pipe, walked towards the spider. Alex’s deep blue eyes were glazed with rage and resentment and they met Frank’s equally powerful brown eyes and something was communicated, something that told Alex she would never see the man again.
The spider faltered as Frank fired one more time, the bullet smashing through the creature’s bared teeth and driving into its mouth. At the same moment Alex brought the first blow of the metal pipe crashing down on one of the spider’s hind legs. The slender steel tip of the leg buckled and the spider tilted to one side. Alex reversed her swing without pausing and completely smashed the opposite leg, sending the limb hurtling away from the creature’s abdomen.
The spider knew fear now and was no longer concerned with the morsel it held trapped and aloft and it shook Frank loose and began to turn. As Frank slid from the blade, the implement retracting with a wet noise from his thigh, Alex dealt another heavy blow, this time sweeping the cylinder up and under the spider’s black abdomen and bursting the sac with the serrated edge of the cylinder. The spider reeled in agony, as the black mucus that constituted its blood, and quantities of its intestine, spilled onto the floor.
Frank fell from where he had been impaled, the momentum caused by the rapid extraction of the spider’s blade turning his body once to set him on a collision course with the sphere. The spider now looked for an escape route from its foe, but there was only the pit, and as indecision clouded its primitive powers of reasoning, Alex propelled the pipe into the section of the spider’s stomach that was presented to her as the creature listed to one side. Barely a foot of cylinder jutted from the spider’s glossy black shell, adding to the thing’s mechanical components and looking like an exhaust coughing the black oil out in a curving fountain.
Frank fell through the sphere’s outer cage, one of the blades circling at high velocities scything through his shoulder as he tumbled. He landed on the opposite side of the cage, slumped against its metal and bone framework, barely conscious and badly injured. Alex moved to the sphere and looked again at the figure rotating inside. The stem connected to the figure’s chest still entered the portal and remained visible through it. And even viewed through the distorted lens of the gateway, Alex could recognize the seated figure of her husband.
Abruptly the figure stopped turning and was still, the cage now equally motionless, its orbit having brought Frank to a point directly in front of the figure at the centre of the sphere. The portal hung now above Frank’s immobile form, rippling and agitated by the stem’s intrusion. The decomposition affecting the face on the other side of the portal was now contaminating the stem on the sphere’s side and clumps of perished flesh fell about Frank.
The figure at the sphere’s centre became aware of its world becoming stationary, with only the slicing blades remaining active, and its head fell forward. The head was human but bled of all aspects of humanity, hairless, expressionless with eyes that were sheer black orbs, fixed now on Frank. Frank fought to stay aware, though the pain shooting through the holes in his shoulder and leg screamed as the nerve endings hung raw and torn.
Through the mist of his pain he saw the figure and something deep inside him awoke.
Alex gathered Jake in one arm and pressed the child close to her chest, whispering in the little boy’s ear, ‘Hold on, my love, we’re going home, Daddy’s waiting
for us.’
The child repeated in a tired sigh, ‘Daddy.’
Alex watched the blades cut their unsystematic routes across the surface of the cage and knew it would not be possible to simply avoid the blades by rushing at the sphere and bulldozing an opening. But she knew that time could become a factor now and that she had to seize any opportunities that presented themselves.
Alex swung the pipe like an axe, shattering bone and metal as a section of the webbed structure of the cage exploded. She did this two more times, but as the pipe crashed into the framework a fourth time, a blade intersected it and dissected it instantly, as if it was no more substantial than paper. The breach Alex had produced was big enough to allow Jake through it, but Alex knew the time that would be required to increase the size of the gap was a few seconds too long and the blades would be upon her before she could complete the task. She feared the implements were capable of actively seeking targets and that they could deviate from their random paths to do so, as vibrations on the surface of its web attract a spider.
So Alex jumped and grabbed hold of one of the lengths of bone on the edge of the gap with one hand, still holding Jake in the other arm. The jump spanned nine feet but she did not even consider not being able to accomplish the feat. There she hung, quickly judging the trajectories of the closest blades as she pushed Jake through the break in the cage exterior. And seconds later a gleaming sheet of razor-edged metal appeared over the curve of the sphere’s periphery, like a gilded metallic sunrise. It adjusted its course and brought itself in line with Alex.
Jake crawled back towards the hole and screamed in panic, ‘Mummy!’
Alex shouted, ‘No baby, stay back, Mummy’s fine!’ The blade raced towards Alex, emitting a shrill noise like a bird of prey swooping for the kill. Alex waited. Then at the last moment she seized the edge of the blade, at the precise moment that it was about to cut her in two. The blade sliced into her palm and hit the bone beneath, and stopped dead. There was a sound that resembled the noise made by a vehicle trapped in mud as it fought to release its wheels, and sprays of blood shot from Alex’s hand as the skin was carved and a wisp of smoke rose, but the blade was held at bay. Then Alex used the leverage created by the pressure of the blade against one palm and the other hand holding the breach’s edge, to force her up and through the gap. The blade zipped away screeching and Alex grabbed her son.
The figure at the centre of the sphere underwent a transformation of its facial features as Frank watched. Black hair began to proliferate on its smooth skull, lines and contours gave the features character now and the black orbs of its eyes melted into pale blue, and Daniel Douglas looked upon his son Francis.
Alex could now see clearly through the lens of the portal and she felt a tide of desolation erode her core as she witnessed her husband surrounded by demonic beings and sitting rigidly in an ornately carved chair that ate at his flesh with wooden probes. And she saw too the head that surmounted the stem, with its two insect antennae sank into Robert’s forehead and her husband’s pulse frantic and prominent in his temples.
‘No! Robert!’ wailed Alex, still holding her son but drawn to her husband.
Then Frank was at her side and he breathed, ‘Go to him, Alexandra!’
Although mutilated by the spider and the sphere’s blades, he stood now, still holding the rifle, and he proffered his arm and took the child. Alex knew Jake would be safe. The man had won her trust and she turned and confronted the portal.
Daniel Douglas smiled as he watched his son take the child. But the sight of his injuries caused a sorrow to rise in him that he could not comprehend. For so long he had known only the sweet, exquisite pain of the sphere and the promises and rage of the thing that had grown out of him. And he existed on the sustenance that was fed into his body from the stalk that grew into him, as if he was the conductive element in that circuit, his body nothing but a conduit for the evil intent of the thing that he had spawned. And kept in perpetual bliss and torment he was forever removed from the real anguish that was his burden. But now that anguish fought to establish parity with the pain and love began to smoother all the hurting that had been induced.
Frank held Jake and faced his father and Daniel wept a single tear and in doing so found his humanity encapsulated in that single drop of moisture. The faltering link with the world he had known and the sum of his being, of what he had been and of what he still hoped to attain, lived in that tear drop.
Daniel ripped one arm free from its bonds and softly wiped at the tear, studying it on his fingertip, and then smiled poignantly, his voice thick and laden with emotion. ‘Where have you been, my beloved son? What have I become, I am so lost, my child, so very lost.’
Alex wrapped her arms around the growth that originated in Daniel’s torso and now had attached itself to Robert.
‘God give me strength, Robert,’ Alex said very quietly and she closed her eyes.
When she opened her eyes Alex thought she caught sight of a figure moving outside the sphere, near the edge of the pit. It was a fleeting blur of black on the periphery of her vision, tall and moving slowly around the pit towards the sphere. She turned back to face the portal and the stem felt repulsive against her skin, wet and repugnant, lumps of putrid flesh becoming detached to reveal steel and bone back-bone, the vertebrae shining white and silver.
On the far side of the portal, the head closed its eyes and began to feel its life force becoming a separate entity from its physical state. It exerted its influence over the essence of what was Daniel Douglas, preparing to transfer that energy and vitality into the vessel of Robert’s body. The thing had sentience that existed separate to the docile being that Daniel Douglas remained and it had devised its own agenda, sapping Daniel’s power to fuel its own continuation.
However, the soul of Daniel still resided in his pitiful, tormented body, buried under layers of sorrow and anguish, subdued by the will of the thing. The thing would now have to coax Daniel’s soul to leave its body and travel with it, to be united in Robert, a new being with a fused soul at its core. But success depended on the soul of Daniel remaining passive and unaware, as it had for the last century, and the thing worried that the jolt of relocation would stir Daniel from his submissive state.
The thing was occupied now, trying to waken Daniel’s being enough to lure him into the transfer, whilst still keeping it compliant. Then the transfer itself had to be effected, when the thing would force Robert’s soul to vacate his body, devouring it, ripping it apart, destroying it and replacing it. But there was a problem. The delicate manipulations of Daniel’s consciousness had been compromised by something and as the thing became alert to this, it sensed the presence of others within the sphere.
Before the thing could act, it felt itself taken hold of by something through the portal, one of the presences now within the sphere. Alex embraced the stem tighter, almost unable to endure contact with the odious thing, but motivated now by the sight of her husband. Now she began to pull, hauling the stem back through the portal like a length of rope, dragging the snake-like carcass away from her husband Robert.
The head screamed in anger and frustration as its connection with Robert was broken and Robert’s body slumped in the chair. The creatures in the room with Robert did not possess any inclination towards loyalty or obligation, and once the connection was interrupted between the head and Robert, they reverted to their child-like nature, wandering away to seek the gratification afforded by human victims.
Robert lifted his head, he felt as if the inside of his skull had been turned into a battlefield and tiny explosions were still detonating across his brain. Then through the fog of the portal he saw Alex, wrestling with the trunk that was the body of the hideous thing confronting him, and she was retracting the thing, hand over hand pulling it back through the portal. And there was Jake, his son, held by a soldier in a uniform of the Great War, the soldier shielding Jake.
Robert tried to rise but quickly realized he could not and w
eakly collapsed back into the chair, just as he heard Jake cry, ‘Daddy.’
Tears streaked Robert’s face as he felt the futility of his efforts, his body refusing to execute his will.
Alex looked at Frank and for a brief moment their eyes met and Alex turned away and shouted to Frank, ‘Send my son to his father, Francis!’
Her voice barely carried to the soldier as the blades on the outside of the sphere were accelerating and reaching critical levels. The sound reverberated through the sphere, which now shook in protest as its bone and metal structure began to buckle. Frank bolted towards the portal, watched by his father. The brick wall that the thing had built around Daniel’s mind now began to crack and crumble, as he became responsive to events within the sphere.
Frank ran, skirting around where Alex grappled with the stem, clasping Jake tightly to himself. The head of the stem had now been drawn back to the liquid surface of the gateway, squirming and writhing, fighting every inch of the way, its wasted flesh detaching from its body, revealing more of the backbone.
Frank watched as Alex finally succeeded in bringing the head back through the gateway and into the sphere, then approached the portal himself and gazed through the silvery film. The head turned now to face Alex and its bone and steel skeleton gleamed in the preternatural light of the sphere, bloodstained and barely covered. Its teeth were bared in rage and it lashed through the air, its high-pitched screech ricocheting off the sphere’s internal surfaces like a stray bullet.
Alex held on grimly, screaming at Frank, ‘Francis, snap out of it soldier! Save my son, send him through the portal for God’s sake, send him back, Francis!’
Spawn of Man Page 24