by Ian Woodhead
“I see you’re admiring my new sculpture. This is Amber. I never really liked your dad. The pervy bastard wouldn’t stop staring at my tits. At one time, I even saw him lick his lips and wink.”
Amber shivered but didn’t turn.
“Hey there, lover boy! Ain’t I the lucky girl? I didn’t think I’d find you with these two fuckheads.” She giggled. “Daniel is coming, by the way. He’s so eager to get his hands on you.” She edged over to the corpse. “I think he wants to burn you, Phil. I do like that idea, but I want to nail you first.” She laughed again. “Oh, that’s good, how ironic, considering it’s you who wanted to nail me.”
Amber caught her breath and backed away. Dave’s eyes widened as the corpse beside Lisa raised its head and looked at its hand. The corpse pulled the hand free, and the nail stayed in place. Amber released a quiet gasp and rushed towards the bedside cabinet. Phil got there before her. He threw the hammer onto the bed, pulled back his fist, and punched her.
She flew back, landing at the corpse’s feet. Dave saw that it now had freed both its arms. It bent over and grabbed the girl, lifting her up. Lisa turned to Phil.
“Get this fucking thing off me!”
The corpse dragged her over to the window.
“No, please,” she cried, as it lifted her up. “Put me down!”
Dave watched it press her body against the glass; the window shattered, and it threw her out. It turned around and staggered forward. Phil grabbed the hammer.
“No,” shouted Amber. “Don’t you fucking dare, that’s my dad!”
As Dave watched, the wound on the corpse’s neck knitted together, it raised its head, and looked at him.
“Hello again, Dave.”
“Dad?”
“I’m sorry, honey, your father’s spirit had left this body.” He winked at Dave. “I did tell you that I’d get back to you.”
Chapter Twenty
Jackie raced out in front of Gavin, her rapid footsteps just eating the metres as they sped along the middle of the road. She had explained to Gavin how she and her brother had entered the town all those weeks ago and theorised that there was a very good chance that the locals hadn’t blocked it. It seemed like a reasonable assumption, but it did help that since leaving the pub they hadn’t spotted a single local. Gavin had no idea where they were and didn’t really care as long as they stayed away.
“We’re almost there,” she whispered, turning around.
He caught Jackie up and pulled her to the side of the road. “Wait,” he whispered. Gavin’s eyes had caught sight of movement in the undergrowth to the left of them. He hoped it was just an animal, but he dare not take any chances. He pulled Jackie down to the ground, watching the top of someone’s head appear over the top of a patch of small trees. He looked at Jackie. “They’ve got this covered as well. Wait here.”
Gavin scrambled along the side of the road, staying low and against the bushes. Just as he suspected, the locals had blocked off this road as well, with a couple of cars. He counted five men, all armed, leaning against the two vehicles and no way around them.
He retreated, not too sure what to do now. Gavin crouched down beside the girl.
“You don’t need to say a word,” she hissed. “I can tell by the look on your face.” She looked behind her. “Okay, we find somewhere safe and wait until daylight?”
Gavin nodded and allowed the girl to take them back the way they came. It felt as though the locals had beaten them. He wasn’t altogether happy with his decision to let the girl take them back. He knew, deep down, that given time, they could have got past those men. Gavin looked behind him, feeling as if he was being somehow manipulated.
“Come on,” she hissed. “I know where to go.”
He shrugged to himself and buried that ridiculous notion. There was nobody trying to make him stay in Brutality; the whole idea was just fucking ridiculous. “Where are we going?”
The girl didn’t answer; she just increased her pace then slipped over a stone wall. “I know where we can stay, Gavin,” she whispered, when he peered over the wall. She helped him over. “Look over there.”
He followed her pointing finger and saw a row of four stone terraced houses standing opposite a field. Gavin knew exactly where they were. Jackie had described the women’s house already. Jackie had led them back to her kidnappers’ house. If she had escaped any other day and wandered into the station, accusing the two women of kidnapping her, Gavin would have had a hard time believing her story. That was in the past, though, before the wool was well and truly ripped from his eyes.
“What the hell are we doing back here?” Gavin didn’t need her to answer that one; her set features had already told him the answer.
“It’s simple. We run inside, chain the bitches up, get what info we can from them, and wait for the sun to come up.”
The girl was serious about this idea. Gavin didn’t see anything in her eyes but hatred. She just wanted to make those two women pay for the torment and the suffering that they caused to Jackie and her brother. He didn’t blame her; if Gavin was in that position, he’d want to do the same. “Look, it’s not long before dawn, Jackie. It will be safer to just find an empty garage or something. Look, we don’t know if they’re even in there or if they have company.”
She turned away. “What’s wrong with you? This could be our only chance of finding out just what the fuck is happening here!” Jackie glared at him. “I want to know why those evil fucks killed my brother!”
Gavin ducked and pulled her down when the front door slowly opened. One of the old women peered around. Had she heard the girl shooting off her mouth? He got ready to run, just in case she started screaming out. The woman left the house and wandered over to a large rose bush in the middle of the lawn. “What is she doing?”
“Ada’s doing a bit of gardening.”
He just looked at the girl. “You made that sound like gardening in the middle of the night is normal.”
She shrugged. “It is for her.” Jackie sighed. “Yeah, you’re right, Gavin, we could find somewhere else to hole up, and we might even get out of here. Thing is, if we can get those two old bags to talk, we might find a way to stop more innocent people dying. Isn’t that what a copper is supposed to do?”
Gavin didn’t believe he was hearing this! Jackie had the balls to try and change his mind with the oldest and crudest psychobabble technique in the book. She was right though.
He stood up and ran across the street, not caring if the old woman heard him. She spun around, her astonished eyes finding his, and they widened even more when the old woman caught sight of Jackie. Gavin slammed his hand over her mouth, spun her around, and pulled the woman tight into his chest; he snatched the snips out of her fingers. “Calm down, lady, and stop struggling.” He pushed the snips against the side of her neck. “Don’t make me kill you.”
“Stab the bitch,” growled Jackie.
Gavin ignored her and leaned closer to the woman. “She doesn’t like you very much, old woman. Are you going to be a good girl, or do I give you to Jackie?” He sensed the fight leave the woman. Gavin pushed her over to the door. “Who’s in the house?”
Ada sobbed. “There’s just me and Betsy, I swear! Please don’t hurt me.”
“The only reason why I haven’t jumped on your head, you old bitch, is cos you let me go,” Jackie snarled.
He pushed the old woman through the door, tensing himself. From what Jackie told him, it was the other woman who would be the problem. Gavin looked around the kitchen, nodding with relief when he saw the inner door closed, “Is the other one in there?” he whispered.
Ada nodded. “It would be best if you just left; she won’t be very happy with you coming here.”
Gavin slid a knife out of the wooden block, placed the snips on the counter, and pushed the woman over to the door. “Just don’t get any funny ideas.”
The old woman let out a tiny whimper. He turned around and stared at Jackie. “That means you as wel
l. There’s been enough killing tonight.” Gavin braced himself, opened the door, and pushed her through while lightly pressing the blade into Ada’s back. He was confident that the nasty bitch wouldn’t do anything stupid. She might be the dominant one in this weird fucking relationship, but Gavin was convinced that despite her the evil streak running through her body, she wouldn’t want to see him kill her only friend.
The other woman was sat in her chair, gazing at the television. Alarm bells rang when she glanced at them framed in the doorway before she turned her attention back to the television. She leaned her head back and smiled.
“I did have a feeling that you’d make your way back here, little missy. I see you’ve brought a friend as well.”
The girl pushed her way into the living room and marched up to the old woman. “How can you just sit there acting so calm? Come on, show us your true colours; you’re supposed to rage at us.”
The old woman laughed out loud. “Oh, you poor child. You look like you have been through hell tonight.” She grinned. “Of course, if it hadn’t been for me conditioning you, I suspect you wouldn’t have lasted more than five minutes out there. Hmm, I don’t hear you thanking me.”
Gavin pushed the old woman into her chair and pulled the sobbing girl away from her before she did something really stupid.
“No, child, I’m not going to rage at you, unless you want me to. I can if you want, I mean, if you’re missing it. See the favour as a last request.”
Jackie shook off Gavin’s grip and hurried around the back of the two chairs. He watched her bend over and grab the chains. The thought of what these two deranged women had done to the girl made him go cold. The girl fully intended to make them pay; Jackie wanted to put them through what they did to her. “Sweetheart, no, there’s no need to chain them up. They’re not going anywhere.”
Betsy got onto her knees and looked over the back of her chair. “Oh, you’d so like to do that, child. I can see the hatred blazing behind your pretty little eyes. But the man is right; we’re not going anywhere. Why should we? Ada and I like it here. Oddly enough, I think that we’ll be the only ones left in town when Daniel takes the others with him.” She sat back down and sighed. “Look at their faces, Ada, they have no idea what is really happening.”
Gavin gazed in confusion at the two woman. They didn’t seem the least bit bothered that he and Jackie had forced their way into the house. Ada just sat there, watching the newsreader announce some new war erupting. Jackie walked up to him and grabbed his hand.
“They weren’t like this before, I swear.” She looked at the TV then stared at Gavin. “Oh fuck, this isn’t one of their videos.”
Betsy laughed. “Oh no, this is live, it’s happening right now. Thanks to Daniel, the whole world is becoming just like our town. We’ll no longer be freaks.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” he muttered.
“Of course you don’t, you silly man. This town and the people who dwell here, under and above ground, exist only to keep you in check. We are both the apple and the snake. Without us following our pre-programmed lives, you will all revert to the template. You’ll become homicidal savages. Don’t believe me? Watch yourselves destroy each other.”
Gavin turned away from her shining eyes and watched in disbelief as the grim-faced newsreader announced tragedy after tragedy happening across the globe. Gavin turned away from the horrific scene of a huge bomb blast in Paris and looked back at the old woman.
“You came here looking for answers, Mr Policeman. Brutality was the last town of its kind. We were holding back humanity’s evil. It’s going to get a lot worse. Just you wait until the ones beneath our feet make their way above ground.” She looked over to the window. “And speak of the devil,” Betsy chuckled. “I’m so going to enjoy this.”
He saw a dark shape run past the window then followed by another. Gavin pulled Jackie away from the two women, “We should have stayed outside, Jackie. That mad old bitch has told the other townsfolk.”
Ada shook her head. “No, it isn’t them. I’m so sorry. Betsy told me to go outside. Child, please forgive me.”
Gavin jumped back when he saw what looked like a huge apelike face pressed up against the glass. “Oh fuck, please not those things.” He pulled the whimpering girl away from the window. He spotted another door on the far side of the living room and ran over to it, praying that those things didn’t have the intelligence to work out how to open a door. He gasped at the sound of a window breaking that came from the kitchen. Those fuckers were already in the house. Over the sound of Betsy’s giggling, he heard the sound of large feet padding across the kitchen tiles.
Gavin spun around, looked out of the rear window, and saw another three of them in the garden. “My God!” he gasped. “These things are even bigger.”
“What do we do?”
“Up the stairs, Jackie, and don’t make a single fucking noise!” He turned at the sound of the kitchen door splintering open. Two of the creatures lunged into the room. They saw Gavin, stopped, and growled.
“Say goodbye to your dirty girl, Mr Policeman!” cackled Betsy.
Both the creatures spun around, leapt over Ada, and landed on Betsy. The woman shrieked as they both tore into her.
He pulled open the door, and silently wept when he saw a flight of stairs. He pushed her forward. “Go hide somewhere,” he hissed. Gavin ran forward and pushed the blade into the back of another creature climbing through the smashed window. He tugged it out then ran over to the stairs. That felt so good. When Gavin reached the door, he turned and saw the subhuman monsters were ripping the other woman apart. One of them had pulled the woman’s head back and was tearing out chunks of flesh from her neck. He left them to their meal and ran up the stairs, after closing the door. Maybe they’d leave the house once they had finished with the women.
Gavin gazed down at the blood dripping from the knife, not understanding what possessed him to do that. He shivered when that feeling of not being responsible for his actions creeped over him again. Jackie stood at the top of the stairs.
“Are they dead?”
He nodded. “They made noise, just like you are. Hush.” Just what would have happened if they had stayed outside? He didn’t even have to answer that one; those things would have ripped them to bits.
Jackie glanced fearfully behind him before hurrying over to the nearest closed door. Gavin gazed at the knife again, wishing it was a gun, and then ran up the rest of the steps. She opened the door and rushed in. He stopped at the threshold and began to shake, seeing the smashed window and the glass spread across the carpet. Those things were already up here.
A huge arm reached in through the window, grabbed Jackie, and pulled the shrieking woman forward. He could only watch, his whole body numb as the creature pulled the girl out of the window. Gavin slowly gazed down at the knife still in his hand, watching droplets of thick blood fall onto the green carpet.
He now realised that, just like the rest of the inhabitants of this town, he no longer controlled his destiny. His free will had just been a cruel illusion. Gavin shifted his eyes and stared at the huge creature leaning against the far wall. “Is that all I am?” he whispered. “Just food to feed you?”
The huge sub-human took one step closer to him and blinked. Gavin stared into those beautiful amber eyes and felt the last of his resistance leave him. He smiled, watching it open its heavy jaw. Gavin closed his eyes, knowing that this was not his true end.
Chapter Twenty-one
He brought his hand up to his face, unable to stop it clenching and unclenching. The excess life-energy coursing through his body made Max feel as though he could run forever. He had forgotten just how good it felt to climb into a new unoccupied body. In reality, Max knew that he hadn’t really allowed the knowledge to vanish. The powers had just stripped out the experience. It made sense, really. If they had allowed him to remember just how fucking awesome it felt, he’d be swapping his body at the merest hint of illness or
damage to the shell.
The terrified expressions plastered across the faces of Amber and Dave made him feel a little guilty. He so wished that he could pass on some of this energy to them; it would make the last part of their journey so much easier. Even the thug looked a little unnerved at seeing a dead man return to life.
“Right, I’ve had just enough of this weird shit,” growled Phil. He glared at Max. “I know you’re not the little tart’s dad. I knew him, and you ain’t that bloke anymore.” He peered into Max’s eyes. “Who the fuck are you?”
He smiled at Phil. “You and Dave stepped over me on your way to the pub last weekend. Dave stopped you from giving me a good kicking.”
“You’re that dirty tramp? Fuck!”
“You wanted weird shit,” said Dave, sighing.
Max ran over to the window and looked down at the broken body below him, wishing that he hadn’t killed her. Max hated needless waste; he also had the feeling that Lisa might have been able to tell him where the knives were.
“Are you going to tell me or what?”
He turned around. “Phil, this town is a machine. The people who were born here, both on the surface and below the ground, are the working parts, the basic components. When the powers gave your species the gift of self-awareness, your primal instincts to rule, murder, and obliterate just overcame every other emotion. Your species raged across the land. You destroyed everything then turned on each other.”
“Don’t we do that now?” Dave shook his head. “I ain’t buying this. You only have to turn on the news to see the violence. We kill each other every day.”
Max nodded, “Yeah, you do, but the violence is still isolated. Before you roll your eyes, just think of how many humans live on the planet; there’s only a fraction of you who cause harm to each other. Can you imagine every human acting like that?”