In The Blood (Book 2): The Blood Lies

by Lee Isserow

  The two 'goblins ignored the dragon entirely. The left one ploughed its teeth deep into Ned's torso, biting clean through his rib cage with a horrendous cacophony of cracks. The dragon's head fell to the floor, starting to lose its shape as the left 'goblin pulled back, tearing sinewy flesh as it ripped a quarter of Ned's body from the whole, taking an arm with it, organs slipping and sliding out of what was left of him, splatting onto the thin carpet below.

  The other 'goblin bit into Ned from the side, but not clean through, it didn't want to separate anything further from the body. The creature sucked what was left of the dragon back through him, Steve's skin stretching and undulating as he filled up all that much more with yet another six litres. When all the fluids were done, the 'goblin to the left spat out the meat and bone it had no interest in consuming, opened its jaws wide and bit back into Ned's skeletal frame, the two monsters pulling what was left of him apart, tearing his lifeless body asunder. The meat slapped against the walls, bone clattering off the ceiling and bouncing off the floor. In that moment, Ben saw a glint in Steve's eye. He knew he was there, knew he was watching, and was enjoying having and audience.

  The two massive 'goblins were on Rob and Shauna before they had time to think, let alone act. Frozen in place at the horrors they had witnessed right in front of their eyes. Their lifeless bodies fell to the floor.

  Steve's skin was tort and pale, from having been stretched wide with another four people's fluids being consumed in mere minutes. “Nice work, mate!” he said, looking up at Ben. He began to pull the blood back into his body, and turned his eyes from his former student, focussing on the kitchen, chuckling to himself as he plodded menacingly towards Kat and Luke.

  “Nice to see you again,” he said, grunting as he dropped down to his knees to address the boy. “How you doing, little guy? Still as special as ever?”

  Kat spat in Steve's face. He chuckled again, and wiped the phlegm from his cheek.

  “Don't worry,” he said, with a smile.”We'll be friends again soon enough. Real good friends.” Steve grunted as he returned to his feet, labouring to lift his mammoth girth from his position on the floor, and clicked the blades back into the fingers of the gloves. He wanted these two alive. Needed them alive. For now, at least.

  16

  Before Steve could lay his hands on Luke and Kat, he found his attention diverted by a chorus of screams from the door. He withdrew from the woman and child, eyed them both up. “Don't you dare move a muscle,” he said, stepping back out of the kitchen and turning to see what was happening to his tacks.

  Geysers of blood were raining down on the small path up to the house, the tacks in various pieces across the street. One of them beheaded, another disembowelled, one with a bite taken out of his crotch, and the fourth barely more than a torso, his fluids being slurped down by two crimson wolves.

  The supine 'goblins were coming from Samuel, out of a pair of ruddy holes in his jeans from where he skinned his knees jumping out of the window.

  Steve smiled as he saw the nervous man, and began slowly reaching for a blade in his body armour. This was going to be fun. An easy kill, for sure, but he'd make sure he got to enjoy every second of it.

  Ben watched his former mentor walk towards the door. He was still frozen, still unable to control his body. And yet somehow, he was putting one foot in front of the other, starting to leave the room, slowly walking down the stairs. It wasn't him, he knew it wasn't his doing. It was as if the blood flowing through his body was taking the reins, compelling his legs to take those steps. It wanted him to move, wanted him to intervene. It was forcing him closer in a bid to get out, to save his friend. It was, he feared, the blood drive.

  Before he had a chance to act, let alone the chance to find something sharp, Steve's bulbous body was hit by something large and hard. A battering ram of crisp, dark brown. A fist at the front that slammed MacGaulty face first into the wall by what was left of the front door.

  The solid mass softened, became translucent, a glistening shaft of deep maroon, that withdrew temporarily. The fist opened up, fingers stretching wide as if cracking its knuckles, then reformed back into the dark fist. It flew through the air again, slamming repeatedly into Steve's body. Bones crunched, but the hits were targeted, no blood was shed.

  When Steve no longer made sounds in response to the assault, the fist withdrew, the brown crust turning back into liquid, taking on a red hue as it receded . Ben came down the stairs and followed the blood back to its source. It went towards Kat, past Kat, and returned into Luke's mouth, sucking itself back in through teeth marks on either side of his tongue. He had bit clean through it in order to let the battering ram out.

  As the last of the blood was siphoned back into his body, the cuts through his tongue healed instantly, and he smiled at Ben with big, bright eyes.

  “How...” Ben said, but there wasn't time for an answer.

  “Come on!” Samuel shouted from the door.

  Kat picked Luke up in her arms and quickly strutted out towards their only surviving comrade.

  “Are you coming?” she asked.

  Ben was frozen again, but no longer from fear. There was something special about Luke, he had suspected it from the way the boy had talked to him, and the way the group were around him. But now with MacGaulty's interest, and seeing Luke heal in mere seconds, he knew it for a fact.

  He took control of his body, turned, and joined them outside, where Samuel was searching through the pieces of the tack officers for the keys to their van. Luke continued to smile at him. Ben knew in that moment that he would not only go with them, he would do whatever it took to keep him safe. But he had no idea how to tell them that all this death was his fault.

  17

  Samuel drove the Blood Squad van at speed, with seemingly no destination in mind. No words were spoken between the four survivors. Each of them was in shock, in one form or another. Ben was glad for the silence, he wasn't sure if he could bring himself to participate if he had been forced to be involved in conversation.

  He sat in the passenger seat next to Samuel, Kat holding Luke tight in the back.

  “We need to change vehicles,” Samuel said softly, as if speaking to himself. “That's what Martin would do, they probably have a tracker on the van. We need something inconspicuous.”

  He started taking his foot off the gas, slowing, and pulled off into a side street. Ben opened the back doors to let Kat and Luke out, whilst Samuel inspected the cars that were parked up on the side of the road. None of them seemed to fit his requirements, all too new, with smart locks and alarms.

  “Over here!” he shouted, waving wildly. He had found an old Volkswagen that suited their needs perfectly. As the others walked over, he was already on his knees in front of the door handle, two paper-clips in his hands, trying to pick the lock.

  “I don't think that's how you pick a car lock...” Kat said.

  Samuel ignored her, biting his lip as he struggled with the thin strips of metal.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder, a tiny hand, and turned to see Luke's beaming face. Without a word, Samuel moved away to let the boy at the lock. Luke presented the first finger of his right hand, and Samuel pulled a pocket knife from his jacket. The child winced as the tip of the blade slipped into the top of his finger.

  Blood coalesced, but less than Ben had ever seen before. A tiny balloon of blood, not much larger than a match book. The boy took his finger to the lock of the car, the blood slipping into the lock, hardening a dark brown. Luke turned his hand, and the car door clicked as it unlocked.

  He withdrew his finger from the car, the key coming with it, and reached for it with his other hand, snapping it off and handing it to Samuel. The rest of the blood withdrew back into his wound, sealing the cut behind it as if it were never there.

  “In,” Samuel instructed. Although he never wished to be the leader of the group, he had seen the way Martin had ordered the others around in times of peril, and was simulating that tone to th
e best of his ability. As soon as the doors were shut, he slipped the key in the lock, and turned it. The car burst to life, and they were away again.

  Ben's head was craned over his shoulder. He couldn't stop staring at Luke's beaming face. “... How?!” he asked, too stunned to form a coherent sentence.

  “He understands it,” Kat said, coldly, pulling Luke into a tight embrace. “Better than anyone.”

  “We reckon he was born with it,” Samuel said. “Steve and myself, that's the conclusion we came to. Born infected, it's been in his body all is life, so it's fused with every part of his brain, he can control it like any other limb or muscle, shape it to his will, with more ease and skill than the rest of us.”

  “I'm like Green Lantern!” Luke said proudly, with a big goofy smile on his face.

  The grin shed quickly, as if he suddenly remembered that it was just the four of them left, that he had lost yet more grown-up friends.

  Ben knew it wasn't the time to ask more questions. He turned in his seat and watched the road for a bit, only glimpsing Luke in the rear view mirror. There were tears welling in the boy's eyes. Samuel's gaze was also flicking back and forth to the mirror, keeping tabs on Luke, worried for Kat, which is why he didn't see the van coming straight for them out from a side street.

  But he felt it, as the metal crunched, warping around his body. The glass shattering, tearing up his face. The steering column bursting through his chest, nailing him in to the driver's seat. Then, all he saw was the blood.

  18

  The breath was kicked out of Ben's chest by the impact, the seat belt restraining him, digging into his rib cage. He was fortunate to be on the passenger side of the car. The Squad's van had whipped round the street, straight into the front corner of the driver's side, totalling the right side of the vehicle.

  Much like Samuel, all Ben could see was blood. A wall of it, separating the driver from him, Kat and Luke. Samuel's body was a mess. The steering column was deep in his chest, stray shards of metal from the warped bonnet had cut through his legs and arms, his face speckled with a myriad slits and slashes from the shattered glass of the wind shield. His blood was coalescing, 'goblins slinking out of his many wounds, several snakes and slugs of plasma that were joining together, becoming a large, angry beast. It snapped its jaws around, but the shield of blood, that was now a deep, dark brown, isolated the creature, protecting the other inhabitants of the Volkswagen from its bites.

  Finding itself with nothing to feed upon, the 'goblin pulled the rest of itself from Samuel's body, and slid out through the warped metal, reforming on the tarmac beneath the car, and sliding towards the sewer.

  Ben heard screams, but the wall of blood was obscuring his view, he couldn't see what was happening outside the vehicle. He turned to Luke in the passenger seat behind him, his neck aching as he craned it. The boy didn't need words, he was already pulling the wall back, it turning from solid brown to a glimmering red as it receded into his mouth.

  It hurt to move, but Ben knew he couldn't just sit there, he had to do something. The screams were still echoing around the car. He reached down, straining his shoulder, and clicked the lock on the seat belt. It slapped back into its slot behind the door, and he leaned forward, to see the 'goblin munching down on a tack officer A large, thick spike in his neck. It was the weakest point on the body armour, he couldn't comprehend how the blood would know that. The screams coming from the man were now gargles. The fiend wasn't drinking him down, his own blood was pouring out of his mouth, dribbling down on to the road beneath him, making the asphalt slick with his internal fluids.

  This was behaviour Ben had never seen from the creatures. He couldn't help but stare, as five litres of blood splattered across the road, and the 'goblin started shrinking in size. It wasn't devouring his fluids, it was swapping them out for its own. Taking over a new host.

  A loud bang rung out across the street, putting an end to the gargles. The tack's head exploded, his body crumpling to the floor with a series of clatters and sloshes, as the armour bounced off the tarmac and splashed in his blood. The creature, startled, and a third of its previous size, withdrew at speed, slinking away down a nearby sewer grate. Its new host was now useless.

  The street was left in a ghostly silence. Ben reached for the handle to the door, tugged on it, but the metal was warped, the door refused to open. He banged on it with his fists, rammed a shoulder against it, regretting it instantly, almost popping his arm out in the process.

  He muffled a scream, didn't want to startle Luke. But Luke was already frozen in fear. Ben looked up, and found that they were surrounded by Tacks with shotguns aimed directly at them. Another two were behind them, with shoulder mounted grenade launchers, the likes of which Ben had only seen in video games.

  A car pulled up alongside them, windows tinted. The driver came out, a young man, tall and gangly, he stared the three of them down. Ben thought he recognised him from the Squad headquarters, but couldn't say for sure. The man lifted a finger to his ear, something coming out across the comms. He looked to the Tacks, then opened the rear passenger door. Nixon Ailes stepped out, he looped the button of his suit jacket up as he rose, and stepped towards the wreck of the Volkswagen.

  “Well, you've given us quite the run-around,” he said, eyes narrowing, lips pursed. “Let's see how far you run in six by nine isolation cells.”

  19

  The Tacks' weapons remained trained on the car, as three more vans joined them. Once the reinforcements had arrived, a Tack came towards the car with a hydraulically powered cutter, that tore through the wreck, biting through the metal with ease, to get at the three trapped inside.

  Ben, Luke and Kat were pulled out, their arms and legs bound with smooth, frictionless restraints. They fought as the Tacks separated them, reminding them with nudges from shotgun barrels that they could be blown apart all too easily if they didn't cooperate. Each was placed in the back of a van that was designed for transporting infected prisoners. Padded cells, no sharp corners, no friction, no way to bleed.

  They were transported through the streets with great haste. It felt to Ben like they didn't stop at all, not even for traffic lights or pedestrian crossings. They were being taken back to the Squad headquarters, he was certain of it. But what the Squad would do to them once they were there, he couldn't say.

  He didn't care so much for his own safety, thoroughly awash with self-loathing, feeling he deserved everything that was happening, for falling for such blatant lies from Ailes and MacGaulty. He had drunk the KoolAid right up, and was prepared to kill based on pure hearsay. He was, however, worried about Kat, about Luke. They were innocents in all this. Infected, sure, but they would never hurt anyone if they didn't have to.

  The van's movement slowed, then stopped. The engine dying. Ben could hear movement outside, Tacks moving into formation, then the clunk of the lock, before the door swung open. They were in the underground parking structure he knew all too well from the missions he had been on with the Squad. But this time, he was on the wrong side of their guns. A Tack came in to the back of the van and undid the restraints on his feet, then ushered him out on to the hard concrete of the lot. Shotguns were trained on him from every angle as they walked him towards the elevator.

  “Where are the others?” he asked.

  His question was answered by shotgun barrels being jabbed into the back of his head, as they escorted him into the lift, and took him to the cells. They were taking them down one by one, he reckoned, to make sure they could keep control over their prisoners.

  They arrived at a floor he had never visited before, bright white walls and floor, lighting secreted in the walls. There were cameras over every door, spying on his every step throughout the walk. This was a clean space, well lit, the blinding white was for contrast, he was certain of it. If any blood was spilled, the cameras would be able to see it instantly. The Tacks nudged him with their weapons, forced him to walk down the hallway, turn a corner, and step through an open m
etal door, and then round into the first room.

  The cell was six feet by nine feet, just as Ailes said it would be. There was no furniture inside, the walls padded just like the van. As he was pushed into the room, the door was slammed behind him, a heavy thunk of locks being forced into place. Ben kicked at the door. His foot sunk into the thick padding that covered it. It was deep, plush, he wasn't even sure if he could feel the metal behind it. Almost a foot of padding. There was no chance of him hurting himself in there. Not by the walls or restraints at least. Ben thought of Luke, biting through his tongue to let the blood loose. He had never thought of that whilst being held prisoner by the so-called 'blood driven', and yet it was so damn obvious.

  Readying himself, and knowing that it was going to hurt a lot, Ben put his tongue between his incisors. He took a breath, lifted his jaws open, and brought them down on the soft, fleshy meat of his tongue.

  His mouth filled with blood, it poured down his chin as it began to take form. He gagged for breath as the creature coalesced from between his lips, inhaled as and when he could through his nose and tried to remain calm. The beast lashed out at the padding on the door with large, hard teeth, tearing through layers upon layers of foam. It was, as he had assumed, over a foot deep. Even ripping through all that foam, reaching the surface of the door, it proved itself hard, rather than sharp. It was smooth metal, no rivets or joints, no points that he could rub against and cut the bonds, or cut more skin. The destruction proved fruitless. The creature coming from his mouth seemed to agree, and began to recede back into the wounds in his tongue.

  “Very industrious!” said a tinny voice. It was muffled, coming through the walls around him. Speakers built in to the cell, behind the padding. But the voice was unmistakable. It was Steve. “Question is... did they turn you?”