It thought it had me. Its mouth twisted into a grin full of fangs, drool wetting its chin. Hunched on all fours, it rose, retrieving a club from a back-pocket. It smacked the club against the house twice – thud-thud – just like that wood-on-wood sound I’d heard earlier.
Apex. The biggest physical difference between it and a mutate was that it had a more human stance. Looking at its hands, perhaps its claws were sharper. Or sharpened.
Two more leapt into the garden from the fence opposite, and when they landed, they grunted and pounded the ground twice with heavy fists. For a second they were hidden in the grass, just enough time for me to run at the alleyway. I had no idea how my leg would hold up. The first step planted a seed of agony that grew so sharp it felt like a lance at the base of my skull. Everything below my left knee felt as strong as a single reed of straw. I had to resort to scrambling with my hands and good leg, the bags on my back throwing up over the top of my head.
The first apex made a quiet cackling sound. Noise, I thought. I need to make noise. The shotgun was in my bag.
Carelessness.
Yeah, yeah. I can learn a little hubris later. For now, I need the shotgun!
Apex number one could also do with a little hubris, I thought. It must’ve seen me reaching into my bag for it jumped at me, coming in high as it began from a standing position.
Scream, idiot! And so I did. It was the strangest sound I’d ever heard. A two-second wail into the twilight that barely sounded human – shrill and loud, almost like birdsong, I thought. I had the strangest idea that I didn’t sound desperate enough. Everyone would ignore it – just Ffion playing games, pretending to be a bird.
I had one good leg at least, so I used it to clamber up the fence. One leap was enough; I winced in preparation for the dagger of its claws in this leg, trailing as it was, but I managed to bring it up in time. I pulled myself over the top and went flying across the neighbour’s patio, hitting the glass patio door hard. It thunked hollow, or maybe that was my head.
The panelled fence I leapt? It smashed into splinters, apex one breaking through.
In a fog, I felt inside the bag until my hand clasped around the stock of the shotgun, fingers working towards the trigger.
It wasted no time, this time, eager for the hunt to be over. Perhaps even angry that it had let me scream to warn the others. Its face bore a wolf-like snarl as it bore down on me, arms reaching out as it flew through the air.
I pulled the trigger with the shotgun still inside the bag, tearing a hole in the bottom of it. Fabric and stories exploded, filling the air with paper confetti and unburdened thread. I was ready for the recoil this time, and fired again almost immediately. Both shells emptied into its head. Dead brain, cold blood and shards of skull splintered brick, painted the glass and gobbed the mould-green patio.
I guess I did need your shotgun after all.
Two rounds, I heard Dale say. You only have two rounds.
I tried to stand, but my head felt woozy, and I forgot about my left leg and crumpled when I used it, falling back against the patio door again. I glanced inside, confused by the sight. There was an apex climbing over the sofa, and another one walking around the dining table. Were there four now? The one that climbed over the sofa came closer and closer, and seemed to stare at the dead one for a second. I scuttled backwards until the sofa apex could no longer be seen, and it was just the red brick of the house that I could see. The mortar up close like hard-packed sand.
I never did see the sea, I thought, feeling a heavy weight fall upon my chest. Breath like yarrow. Come to think of it, had apex one been wearing a wreath of yarrow?
My head felt soft against the patio, as though it would sink into it, forever falling back. Closing my eyes relieve the ache, and dulled the lovebite to my neck. Have my blood. Eat my flesh. You earned it.
July 2028
It was a night for the insects: the meadow grasshoppers offering up a soundtrack of chirruping; green tiger beetles chasing greenfly and ants across dry earth; silver moths autographing the leaves with their shadows; garden spiders still silhouettes in their webs; mosquitoes and gnats on the search for places to land, and not finding any on me.
The heat of the day had lingered long after the burning sun had set; it may have been on the other side of the world but its effect was still palpable on my mood, making me irritable and quick-tempered; giving my skin an all-over scratch I couldn’t itch.
Among the many documentaries in the pile of DVDs kept in the cellar were ones on the animal kingdom. It always made me smile; our pompous superiority in the narrators’ voices, and the cold distance in which we watched one animal eviscerate another. How now we were relegated from the top of the food chain.
I had a lot to thank those nature programs for, though.
First; the zebras. One night way before this, on another humid summer’s night, I left the farm and headed down to the nearest stream. Blue-bottles smacked me in the face and New Forest cicadas, fresh from near-extinction and northerly migration, clicked and made sounds like rattlesnakes. The moon was open for business. The stream not. It was so dry I had to walk down it for twenty minutes before coming across an inlet still wet, sitting in bogland mostly dry. I removed my boots, my shorts and my T-shirt and sat in the water, sweeping my hands around me to disturb the earth beneath water. The more I disturbed it, the muddier it got. When it was the right consistency, I gathered handfuls, not caring about the occasional fly or mosquito that got pulled into the grey, slimy mud. I began with my left shoulder, smearing mud across my chest to my lower-right torso; one thick, slick line. The cooling intensity was ecstasy. I repeated the process, over and over until I was smothered in lines that zagged across my torso, my legs, my arms, hands and feet. Front and back, to all the places I could reach; and then I stepped out from beneath branches to stand in the moonlight, my arms out wide, trying to feel how the zebra must feel as the black-and-white stripes cool him down.
That theory had been a general wash-out. The moon was no sun replacement, and in the harsh light of day, back at the farm, no way in hell Mother would let me get on with my chores covered in zebra mud-stripes and nothing else. The mud though...
Since then, the mud had become routine. No need for stripes. I’d found a better deposit that was more clay-like than the gritty earth of that first experiment, and it was here where the nature programs became useful for a second time.
Pond-skaters darted across the surface of my private pool, indenting it with glints of moonlight. I’d dug this pit and created a runaway from the stream so that it had the best chance to stay wet, even after weeks of hot weather. It could grow a bit green sometimes, and had a knack for attractive frogs and newts, hosts of insects; beetles and ladybugs. All things that might die in it, or nearby, and so add to the melting pot furnace of muddy joy.
I’d left my clothes at the farm, utilising the cellar tunnel and the outhouse to escape unseen. Mother only complained when I returned with unexplained mud that she needed to wash. I said I’d wash it, but she said she had nothing better to do anyway.
At my pool, I sank my hot skin into the water and imagined steam sizzling off of me. In reality, I was becoming better at heat regulation; breathing techniques and keeping to the shade working wonders. I still enjoyed the freshness of the pond and especially enjoyed how it felt to be covered in the mud, so as soon as I was wet, I scooped up the mud and began to plaster my skin. If I rolled to the side a little, I could sink in it. I’d throw my hair back from my forehead and bury my head, wiping away only the eyes and ears after emerging.
Tonight was a little different to the norm, though. My territory had been invaded.
Once I was caked in mud, I crawled out of the bog and head back up the hill, rolling in nature’s debris on the way; grabbing handfuls of green grass, or grass burned by the sun, and sticking it to me. Twigs, the hair of other animals, dead leaves, dandelions, nettles, dock leaves, squashed gooseberries, half-chewed blackberries, dung. It all bec
ame me.
I emerged from the lower wood as something else. My true self, I came to think of it. Unfettered. I walked low, trotting to four limbs occasionally, stopping regularly to sniff the air.
Against a tree, its piss was a radiant beacon. The scent trailed off across a meadow. Disturbed tall-grass indicated I was heading in the correct direction. I followed scent and signs for half an hour until I came upon it, and as there was no wind to speak of, it didn’t know I was there.
Its fur was a silken alloy in the moonlight; silver by night and golden by day. A female lion with a proud head and standing tail that flicked left and right. She’d take a few steps, sniff at something, then move on. Every now and then she’d mark the bark of a tree with her snout, or raise her head to peer around her, as if she could sense me.
The mud had hardened by now, and fallen where limbs bent. Skin still black with dirt. Perhaps when she saw me my eyes peered molten from a black shadow, as the cat’s did to me. But I think not, for she didn’t acknowledge me.
Hunting was scarce here, between the mutates and I. So it was not long before she became tired of looking and found herself a spot in the open in which to lie and rest. As soon as he lay down, she disappeared, as the grass around had not been harvested, not for many years. The grass was brittle and straw-like, and not so quiet to prowl through.
Perhaps she would just stroll on through, I considered.
But perhaps not, for she was scenting the trees and moving gently in a circular route.
She was too close to the farm, I decided.
The grass rustled – wind blew across the meadow. Dung and piss, mixed with a deeper aroma I couldn’t place, drifted over from the lion’s resting place. The wind turned and I wondered if my disguise would be good enough to keep it away.
Is that what I want?
The lion had laid down in the middle of the grass, far from any over-hanging branches, out of sight and unable to ambush quietly.
I scraped my fingers across my arms, emptied my armpits. I squatted and pulled away the mud caked between my legs, and then peed. The trickling sound alone should have alerted her.
Facing her direction, I stood and began to walk backwards. Lions, I’d learned, hunted in packs. Co-ordinated. Solitary lions became desperate when they were hungry, attacking animals that were even far too large for them, and often becoming injured as a result. This one was no doubt desperate – desperate enough to throw caution to the wind though?
“Come check me out,” I whispered.
Perhaps she would think, if I’m human, than I may have food, since she must have come from a zoo.
Distant grass twitched.
I continued to step backwards, only as I did so, I flattened the grass with my feet. It wasn’t much of a clearing – little more than a weedy gully – hopefully it’d be enough.
Perhaps she would think my sounds were so small that I posed no threat. That my pee was nevertheless substantial enough to check me out.
The shifting grass grew closer, until it was almost at the point where I’d began to flatten it. When the gully had reached about ten feet (and about two feet wide), I knelt in a pounce position.
A pair of silver eyes shone from the shadows. Her breath was strong, reeking of sour milk and blood. She smelled like she was dying, perhaps. Starving.
That was the kind of desperation I could use.
“Come,” I said. “Here, kitty.”
She growled, stepping from the shadows. Shoulders sharp as arrowheads. Jowls dripping from snout. She dropped and wiggled her haunch. And launched.
I’d been holding my breath for about sixty seconds, preparing to make whatever move was needed. As soon as she pounced at me, I leapt, breathing out at the same time (imagining that breath like a punch, a fist of action). Her claws stretched out towards me but she was weak, falling short, and would need to take another leap after landing before reaching me. I took the advantage and leapt higher, coming to land on top of her. Mid-air, I twisted around, so when I landed it was on her back, with all her malnourished coarse hair sticking like needles into my skin where they could penetrate the dried mud. She buck and rolled, hissing weakly. A growl that turned into a long, drawling mewl. I locked my forearm around her throat and dug in with my fingers, slicing with nails and tearing. Blood gushed across my hand, yet she continued to thrash. At one point she pinned me to the ground, kicking her legs. It didn’t matter – try as she could, she couldn’t get her claws at me, or those teeth of hers.
I took her back to my home from home.
March 2029
Being dead wasn’t so bad. I’d given it my best shot. The predators had outfoxed the predator and won, and that was that. Sleep eternal.
So I was surprised when I opened my eyes.
I was somewhere dark, or it was night. I was on my back, or sitting up. I either felt nothing, or my head swam in a fog of dull aches that seemed to flow from the back of my head to the front, and back again. It was cold. Definitely cold. There was a weight on me; twitching my fingers, soft fibres brushed against my fingertips. A blanket, or two. Smell of damp.
A ceiling resolved with black mould spots dancing across ornate cornicing. Light filtered in over the top of a thick, drawn curtains. The walls were an egg-shell blue, a floral-patterned wallpaper.
I shivered, and couldn’t stop.
“Hey,” said a quiet voice.
I closed my eyes. Something warm patted my brow, easing my headache a little.
“Can you hear me?” It sounded like Elyse, or Bessie.
I inhaled as deeply as I could, and exhaled a long groan. “Cold,” I croaked.
“We’ve tried to warm you up as best we could. No matter what, you stay cold.”
A loud gurgling sound rippled across the room. “Hungry.”
“It’s been two days, I’m not surprised. We managed to drip water into your mouth.” She dabbed at my forehead again. “I don’t know what we can do to warm you up. We can’t do a fire, not here. And we can’t move you, not yet. We’re all a bit unsure what to do with you, truth be told. You should be hot, if anything. Not cold.”
As I tested my limbs, the numbness caused by the cold and my unconsciousness seemed to wane, and hot coals of pain bit through in places. My left calf. My neck and my left cheek. My stomach most of all, cramping. “Eat,” I managed to say. I tested turning my head, rolling it onto the aforementioned left cheek, and pain lanced through.
“Careful. They... well... we’ve patched you up as best we could, but they bit quite the chunk out of your cheek.”
Those mutates. I moved my head against the pain and lifted my shoulders from the bed. I reached out for Bessie, grabbing her shirt, and said; “Eeeeeeat.” That was all the energy I had, and I collapsed into another sleep eternal.
Only not as eternal as I’d hoped. When next I woke, Adeline was at my side with some water and dried rabbit meat. I could smell it before opening my eyes, and my mouth immediately began to drool. My head was higher now, propped up under two or three pillows. I saw a water bottle coming for my lips and sipped away. Next came the meat, soft as though it had been soaked in hot water for a few hours to rehydrate. Not only could I taste the rabbit, but also the grass that it had eaten; the sunlight, the rainwater. It melted in my mouth and I asked for more, more. All the while trying to contain my shiver. Hoping for the numbness to last a little longer so I didn’t have to feel my injuries all over again.
I’d not been cut like that before. Its claws must’ve been like razors. Razors with a poisonous coating.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“Hurt.”
I must’ve sounded as incredulous as I felt, because Adeline responded with; “No-one’s immune to pain, no matter how we feel.”
I was on a long couch of some kind, inside a room with long windows and antique furniture. Adeline sat at my side, holding my hand. “How did I... get here?”
She squeezed my hand, and with it some of the numbness faded again. A
little warmth flowed through me. “You want more?” She held up some more meat, and I nodded. Putting it to my lips, she continued; “Your belly’s not stopped rumbling. There, there. Made it soft for you, thought it might be better.”
I nodded, gratefully.
“Do you remember being attacked?”
“Apexi.”
She smiled. “Apexi. Yes... you had quite the bump on the back of your head. Wasn’t sure if you’d remember. Greg got to you first, but by then it looked like you’d taken care of them.” She shook her head. “Girl... four beasts. You took on four beasts and came out the other end. You are surely something else. A little bruised and battered, for sure. But look at you – still breathing!”
“How do you mean?” I asked, putting a hand to my cheek.
“You got yourself a few lovebites there. Don’t you remember those? I suppose in the heat of the battle, everything moves quickly. I couldn’t take a proper look myself – why add to my nightmares? One of the things with its head completely blown off, and three others, all dead on the ground. Blood around their mouths. Looks like they got their teeth into you, only to then get their neck twisted, right? No-one’s quite sure how they died. Assume you used your skills. I can only imagine the ninja assassin I’d be if I’d grown up in this world. Prepared to fight at every second. You are something else, Ffion. Something else. Have another sip of water.”
I nodded and swallowed. “I don’t... remember... how the others died.”
“Well, it’ll come back to you, no doubt. I cleaned your wounds, best I could. We weren’t too sure in the beginning, you know... how to deal with you. Everyone we’ve known to be bit, well, the fever comes on and next you know they wanna take a bite outta you. Dale was all set to put you out of your misery, but Greg saw you were still breathing, and then when I got close to you, you were ice. Been ice ever since. Seem to be warming up some now, though.” She grabbed my left hand and rubbed it between hers.
The Risen ( Part 2): The Risen, Part 2 Page 10