Fruit and vegetables suddenly hung from trees that grew by a clear, cool stream. His unconscious mind interfaced with his environment and communicated his needs and they were subsequently catered for. And more than once he thought his creations were inspired by childhood visions of the Garden of Eden. But when he found his hunger and thirst waning and eventually the need for nourishment dissipating, the trees shed their bounty and bloomed with deep red and yellow flowers. The stream changed too, the clear water slowing its pace and flowing like blue, liquid metal.
Andrews watched the group on the shore now. As time had passed they had changed their behavior and on this day they had walked into the lake, wading out until the water was waist height. Even though there was a considerable distance between the group and Andrews’ boat, he could tell they watched him. Although Andrews’ senses had been sharpened to a profound extent, he could not determine the faces of the individual members of the group and had assumed that was not permitted.
But he had noticed lately that a tall figure had accompanied the group. Towering unnaturally above the others as if they were children, this form stood on the periphery of the gathering. Andrews could not tell if he was part of the congregation or overseeing them like a shepherd, but he could distinguish features on this face, even though the figure was set further back. Andrews waved at the group as he had done for the last several visits and they returned the greeting. Intuition suggested that, little by little, whatever barrier kept them apart was being dismantled and that each one of these encounters with the group brought actual contact nearer.
Andrews could not yet fully explain why he did not follow the group when they climbed over the hill. He told himself he did not want to force the issue by climbing the hill and pursuing them but he did not believe that. In truth he was prohibited from following by the same subliminal code of instructions that governed all his actions.
For some inexplicable reason Andrews was able to focus more intently on the tall figure’s features and on the details of its apparel. It was a humanoid male, although abnormally tall and slightly stooped. It had an ancient face, pitted with crevices and scars, and its features seemed fashioned from grey, weathered stone. Andrews was convinced its large, black, owl-like eyes scrutinized every move he made as they remained fixed on him, cold and evaluating.
One of the figures in the crowd turned towards the man in black and the giant raised a long, thin arm and a finger uncurled in the motion of pointing. Andrews saw that it was a slender, boney digit that ended in a sharp talon and he then realized the giant man was pointing directly at him.
The figure in the crowd that had turned to face the giant now separated from the group. Andrews noticed something familiar about this form but he could not identify what it was.
Chapter Thirty-Three
2056
Pierre Durand, the brilliant but warped surgeon, Nazi collaborator, mass murderer and now a four-foot beast, shifted the weight of debris from his body. His breath was labored as he crawled from the rubble that encased him. Chunks of rock and sections of brickwork fell from his dust-shrouded form. Pierre quickly looked about himself, scanning the immediate area for any signs of imminent threat or danger, and found none, so he crawled further from where he had been entombed.
Pierre checked his surroundings again, but still found no sign of risk or hazard, so he raised his body into a crouching stance and moved more boldly. He had been buried in his shallow grave amongst the ruins for many months, patiently waiting for a time when the humans had moved away. They were organized and he hated them for that. They swept across the lands now, fighting back and destroying the dead where they found them. The dead had never been organized. They had run amok on the Earth like a berserk wave of locusts, draining life force from the living to satiate them. But they had only armed themselves primitively. They had no concept of machinery any more. That ability had been lost to them through their exposures to the plane where they had existed after their physical death.
There was a realm where gratification was the only goal and where any material apparatus that might facilitate that end could simply be wished into existence. And so the actuality of operating physical devices was now alien to the reincarnated dead.
But now the humans had regrouped and begun to devise armed resistance. Pierre had endured too long in his hiding place. He had only dared venture out under the cover of darkness and even then only with great stealth and care. When groups had moved near to where Pierre was concealed, he had picked off numerous humans that either scouted ahead of the main body or straggled behind it.
Pierre had glorified in keeping these individuals alive as long as physically possible, ripping non-essential pieces of their bodies from them, reveling in their agony, intoxicated by their suffering and gorging on their life-force. Over a century ago, in his incarnation on this Earth, Pierre had been a surgeon. He had been a corrupt human, depraved, debauched and had fed on the weak to satisfy his debase lusts. Now he used those remembered skills to inflict mutilations upon the victims that crossed his path. But there had been no such groups for many weeks and Pierre was now driven to fulfill another purpose, something other than preying on the humans. Now he stalked that objective, lengthening his strides and straightening his back, as he grew in confidence.
Pierre had the semblance of the human he had once been, but indulgence in perverse pleasure on the plane of the dead had twisted and transformed his shape into something abhorrent. Pierre was aware of this condition and he wished he resembled the humans more. Not because of a desire to be more like them, but as a guise to move amongst them and gain their trust before inflicting atrocities upon them. As he moved he extended it fully and the sound of joints snapping back into use reported like rifle fire.
The stainless steel surgical saw that constituted Pierre’s right forearm glinted in the fresh sunlight and the exposed, brown bone of his left arm glistened as rays found it. Pierre’s skin was hard and he moved as if it was inflexibility that hindered him. But his intense blue eyes were quick and alert, housed in the finely constructed face of a middle-aged human male. And the blue-black ligature marks around his neck were as pronounced as the day he hung himself in September 1945.
Excesses of saliva and bile spilled from his mouth as Pierre’s jaw continuously worked the sharp little teeth in a gnashing motion. So remorseless amongst the reawakened dead was the craving and longing to be flesh again and to taste flesh that the grating, gnawing function of their teeth was incessant.
Pierre was nearly blind now, as were many of the dead. The transition from the afterlife to the material plane had not been without complications and thousands had not survived the rebirth. In the realm of the dead, every shell was transformed into a physical manifestation of its deviations and lusts, but the resurrections had enhanced these malformations hideously. But although many were blind or mute their sense of hearing and smell was greatly developed the instant they were reborn.
Pierre progressed, using his hearing like a form of radar that he cast before himself to map the environment, nimbly picking a course through the rubble-strewn landscape. In life Pierre had been truly evil and that nature seemed to have fortified his mind, enabling him to cope with the transition to the physical world better than many of his counterparts. Pierre found his mind not as dulled as many of the other risen and he had used that superior intelligence to survive. Indeed he had been selected for this task because of that intellect. There was a sound and a smell, hitting Pierre simultaneously, directly northeast of his current location. It was a human and it carried machinery, most probably a weapon. The smells assaulted Pierre’s senses, causing him to become excited and cautious in equal measures.
The human was male, armed and alone, which meant it was probably a scout and that the main group was nearby. Usually single scouts indicated close proximity to the collective.
Pierre could taste the human’s flesh on his tongue now and his bared rows of teeth snapped together at frantic speeds, a
s if motorized. He sensed the human before the man saw him. The man carried an assault weapon and Pierre detected the distinctive powdered residue from its muzzle and that the man was not expecting threat. Pierre lowered himself and his long, wasted fingers found a rock that was marginally smaller than the human’s head. The man did not wear a helmet and the rock hit him just behind his left temple. The man’s weapon discharged into the ground erratically as he fell.
The projectile had punched a hole through the bone of his skull and caused massive trauma to the area of the brain housed beneath.
He lay unconscious, his legs twitching in spasms, as blood spurted from the concave section of his head in abrupt, sporadic little gushes. Pierre was upon the man in seconds and a minute later the man’s eyelids fluttered open, as he became aware again. Thick saliva dropped from Pierre’s mouth, stinging the man’s eyes shut again, and he reached for his weapon, which still lay by his side. Pierre smiled, his lip-less mouth stretching wide, to almost cleave his face. Pierre turned his head and watched the man’s fingers crawl along the ground, spider-like reaching for the weapon. Pierre allowed the man’s fingertips to reach the metal of the rifle before grabbing the outstretched arm with his own long, clawed, skeleton-fingers.
For a moment he held the limb taut, feeling the rush of hot blood pulsing through the living skin, the swarm of vital cells, the frantic chemical exchanges as the human’s brain tried to instruct and prepare for what came next. What came next was Pierre pushing his knee against the man’s chest, pinning him down so violently that ribs cracked under the pressure and the man fought wildly for his next breath. Pierre felt the luscious sensation of the man’s sternum snapping apart and as the audible splintering sounded, he howled as the man thrashed ineffectually below the weight. Pierre lowered his face and whispered into the face of the man, ‘Oh for more time to enjoy you, but time grows short, flesh walker,’ and with that he severed the man’s arm, using the shining saw that had replaced his other forearm.
The man tried to scream but only succeeded in coughing mouthfuls of blood into the face of Pierre. Discarding the arm, Pierre licked the smears from his own cheeks, his tongue long and dexterous, as it sought the liquid.
‘Now time for you to pass, flesh walker,’ hissed Pierre and the man watched wide-eyed as Pierre thrust his hand into the open wound where his arm had been ripped from his shoulder. The man’s mouth opened wide but he was silent, crazed, deep in shock and on the verge of cardiac arrest now. Pierre quickly shoved his hand through the man’s shoulder and into his chest cavity, fragmenting and shattering bones and sinking his arm to the elbow before grabbing the man’s heart and tearing it out of his body. The man died as he watched his own heart held aloft like a trophy by the screaming thing knelt on his chest.
Night fell and Pierre waited. After devouring the human’s heart and feeding on the rush of pure energy that was the man’s life force, he had moved for five miles. The humans would not deviate from their course to seek the scout and Pierre now squatted in the shadows outside the chapel. The chapel was derelict now, having been damaged in numerous air strikes on the surrounding area. When the humans had begun to wage war on the dead, it had initially proved to be a double-edged sword, for both species.
The shells thrived on the enormous outpouring of negative energy created as humanity instigated the global conflict. The hate, fear, hope and despair injected massive amounts of nourishment into the collective mass of shells, yet it also signified the beginning of the end for them as the humans fought back. Now Pierre sat and contemplated nothing but the dynamism pulsing through his body from the death agonies of the human he had killed.
The chapel sat on a slight incline within the grounds of the Douglas Institute. Not many structures had survived the onslaught of air strikes in this area and the chapel had the bizarre aspect of having almost the whole of the west side of the building missing. It was as if the hand of God itself had reached down and peeled open the little structure to peer at the congregation inside. But now the building lay empty and silent with its innards bared. The wooden supports and beams remained, like a rib cage jutting out of a gaping brick and plaster wound, and pews patiently waited for worshippers that would never return.
It was through this decay that Pierre now moved to the north end of the chapel, and then through a heavy oak door in the still intact east wing, and down a flight of steep stone steps. Up in the partially exposed interior of the chapel the air was burnt and hot, but down here the air was cooler and dank. This place had been used as a shelter when the bombing was at its most prevalent and Pierre was charged now with the residual terror and loss trapped in the walls of the cellar. Pierre basked in the invisible wash of emotion that leaked from the walls like running water and the imperceptible echoes of screaming and weeping rejuvenated him.
Pierre quickly sifted through rubble and debris for the prize of the bones of those who died violently. His search proved fruitless and was cut short by a searing pain in his skull. The entity conversing with Pierre was not pleased with its present pre-occupation and the jab of pain communicated its displeasure. Pierre shook his head, gnashed his teeth again and then moved to the centre of the cellar. Here he lifted fallen beams and displaced rock, until a sizeable, but shallow crater was uncovered. The depression was packed with loose gravel and layers of fine dust and Pierre clawed at these until an object was revealed. A brown, worn blanket, threadbare and stained with deep red patches, was loosely wrapped around something bulky and irregularly shaped.
Pierre reached into the crater and pulled the object free. He stood and held the object and the blanket spilled over both his arms. The way in which the blanket fell suggested something was coiled within it in excess of some twelve feet. Pierre regarded the object as if he held an infant and he looked about himself to find a clear, raised space to set its load down. As Pierre moved to an old damaged table that leaned for support against one of the cellar walls, the blanket moved.
Pierre pulled the blanket away to reveal what stirred beneath, a mass of bloody folds, intertwined and overlapping on itself until it resembled a grisly representation of a helix strand. Pierre brushed away the items that sat on the table and gently replaced them with the blanket and its contents. He uncovered the blood-splattered collection and began to separate the individual pieces. Pierre worked with a delicate touch that was out of character with the gnarled bones of his fingers, and an hour later he stepped away from the table. On the table before him lay an assembly of parts that looked as if they should fit together, but had been divided in the fashion of jigsaw pieces.
The impression was of a dissected animal displayed as an exploded view. But although tissue matter and muscle structure were evident, these were interspersed with sections of coils and motors. The sliced flesh and cut bone revealed interplays of circuitry and cabling in a pulpy fusion of machine and the organic. Pierre was pleased with his endeavors, even though he could not fully see the results, and his features twisted into a manic smile. Next his bone-fingers hovered over the portion of the assemblage that formed its “head.” Carefully he stroked the bulbous area, visualizing through his fingers, as his grin widened to show more of the sharp little teeth.
The head was heavily scarred and lacerated and the eyes were lidless and lifeless. The aspect was humanoid, but there was no hair or extremities and the impression was mask-like. From the head sprouted a stem-like growth and it was this stalk that was chopped into many pieces and merged with the mechanical parts. Pierre leaned over the table and adroitly parted the lip-less mouth of the head, to reveal teeth that were as pointed as his own. Then Pierre convulsed and his stomach went into spasm as it retched and the muscles heaved. From his jaws Pierre spilt a thick bright red liquid that splashed onto the head on the table. The fluid had the texture of mucus and it separated into strands as it reached from Pierre’s mouth to fill the mouth of the head on the table. Pierre vomited the human heart he had recently devoured into the mouth of the monstrosity on the table.
Then he retreated to the shadows of one corner of the room and waited.
Days went by and Pierre still waited. Intermittent gunfire and shell-burst sounded outside, sometimes seeming near to the small chapel, but Pierre did not stir. Day and night were not separated in the gloom of the cellar, but during one period of time there was movement on the small table. Pierre guessed it was morning outside by the birdsong and he moved towards the table again. He heard a wet choking sound and distinguished a squirming motion on the table, as if the stem writhed in the substances that had seeped from its own body. Then everything was silent again.
Pierre stood by the table without moving for another three days before there was movement again. Now threadlike filaments emerged from the flesh and bone that had been ripped apart and began to knit the segments together. The coils fed into each other, then motors realigned themselves and when the reformation was fully achieved the entity was reborn and it shrieked into existence.
Pierre reached out and lifted the entity from the table, lumps of raw flesh dropped from its form as it was moved and it whimpered through its agony.
Pierre spoke to the entity then. ‘I am so sorry for your pain. But I have been instructed to care for you until your new strength flourishes on this physical plane. Then you will lead us against the flesh-walkers and we will inherit the physical world and enjoy their sorrow for eternity.’
The entity coiled its body then and waited for its strength to return and it dreamed of Daniel, Robert and Alex.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The lake’s surface was as placid and serene as the two men that drifted upon it were. Neither spoke for a long time. Their fishing rods lolled across the side of the small boat they occupied and the still, warm air was filled with the sound of whispering tree branches and the buzz of lazy insects, some real and some imagined. Although the men occupied the same boat, what they saw and felt, and the smells and sounds carried to them across the waters calm, varied slightly in their perception according to the peculiarities of each man’s mood and physiology.
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