by Hall, Andrew
‘What?...’ she mumbled to herself, sitting down on the edge of the bathtub. When she glanced in the mirror, she saw someone new. Her sad eyes were piercing green, lighter than they should have been. Her ginger curls had turned a vivid shade of red. She stared in silent shock; raised a grey hand to her face. That wasn’t her.
Dazed, Tabitha wandered back into her bedroom. She saw the threadbare carpet just inside the doorway. It was all coming back to her then, like a dream forgotten. Silver legs; lots of legs. And the stabbing alien needle. She studied the little pock mark in her thigh where the needle had gone in. It’d healed incredibly well for such a short time; there wasn’t even a scab. Looking around as she got dressed, she saw a silver spidery leg on the carpet behind the door. The alien. The socket… she’d killed it. It was out on the landing. Tabitha turned around, and there it was. Propped up in the back corner, legs jutting up against the wall. Just as sinister in death. She didn’t want to go close, but curiosity pushed her towards it like a hand on the small of her back. She reached out and touched a silver leg. Its skin rasped against her grey palm like sandpaper. The same skin.
Tabitha sat down on her bed, and pulled her phone from her pocket to call her mum. The phone didn’t switch on though. The charger didn’t work either. Not the lights, or the radio, or her little TV. No electricity, no running water… what was going on? Nothing made sense. She had to get to her mum. Everything would be alright; she just had to get to her mum. She had to tell her the whole terrifying tale.
When Tabitha came back downstairs into the living room, Mog didn’t recognise her. She looked much the same but moved, smiled and smelled differently. Her every step was a snake-hipped seduction to the empty house around her.
‘Hi,’ she said softly, waiting for Mog to edge closer for a stroke. Eventually he came and nudged her grey hands and circled her feet, purring. Tabitha put some food out for him in the kitchen, and stroked him as he tucked in. She couldn’t feel his fur on her fingers. There was a sour rancid smell coming from the fridge; the power must have cut out while she was passed out on the carpet. A cold puddle covered half the kitchen floor. Just how long had she been unconscious? She took a carving knife from the kitchen drawer to dissect the alien upstairs. She had to be quick. She had to get to her mum. But if there were more of these creatures out there, then she had to know how to stop them. She had to know what made them tick. Suddenly this was survival.
As she skinned her kill quickly in the bathtub, Tabitha realised that her body felt leaner. Stronger. She peeled back the alien’s skin in a rush and caught her wrist against the edge, and it sliced her skin like a tin lid. Blood like quicksilver streamed down her arm for a second, before the stinging cut healed up. A few seconds, and it’d closed up completely. She stared at her blood, shining silver like mercury, still dribbling down her arm. It tasted good. Beneath the spider’s skin were fibrous muscles, solid bunched-up cords of white meat. It hardly smelled of anything; just metal and faint salty flesh, with the clammy whiff of oil mixed in. Its splayed legs looked part spider and part crab. Its silver blood dripped thick into the bathtub, pooling and trickling down the drain.
After the quick dissection Tabitha slipped the carving knife into her belt. She’d wasted enough time. How could she not have rushed out to see her mum first? She hurried downstairs and swapped her trainers for hiking boots.
‘I’ll be back soon,’ she told Mog in the kitchen, rushing back through the living room for the front door. She stopped for a second, and felt a tingling in her chest. A sudden burst of lightning arced around her; a noisy crackling hiss. She stared in shock at white veins of electricity, coming from her. Something in her chest came to life where her heart should have been; something made of living metal and current. Voltage coursed through her body. Frantic branches of lightning jumped out of her, scorching the walls. Tabitha was paralysed; feeling too good to do anything about it. High on a neon cloud in her head. She tensed up inside when the electric feel embraced her. Weak at the knees. She felt the current reaching in everywhere, warm and tingling. Some new part of her mind fantasised about cables and circuits; saw their amorous voltage reaching out towards her. There was a lightning storm around her in the living room. Her clutter and magazines were sailing through the air, blown against the walls in a hissing gale of static. Mog escaped out of the cat flap in the kitchen door. Tabitha threw her head back. The volts reached into her, right in. They made her gasp. She moaned and smiled, climaxing. Every electronic shook and rumbled then, and exploded suddenly in a cloud of sparks and smoke. The stuffing from the couch tumbled down like foam snow. Tabitha writhed on the carpet as the waves of pleasure died down.
‘Hm?’ she said in a daze, sitting up to look around. A lightning storm had scarred her living room. Possessions in ruins. TV on fire. As her senses came back to her, Tabitha remembered her mum. She had to get to her. Drunk on voltage, she picked up the TV and sent it bursting through the window. She leapt out after it; cast her old self aside. Tabitha was about to become much, much more.
Tabitha leapt down to the garden. The shattered plastic corpse of her TV lay in pieces around her. She stood and stretched, took in the seaside. Walked out onto the street. She wondered what everyone would make of her now, lithe and confident; bright red hair and steel-grey hands. But the street was empty. The air was a heavy silence. The sky was cloud-muddled, stark and white. Beneath it the grey world sprawled in shock, silent and bleak. The drains reeked; the cloying sulphur smell of decay. There were no city sounds, no hiss of traffic in the distance. Only the tide and the seagulls. Where was everyone? She got into her car and it wouldn’t start. No lights, no radio, nothing. This was getting too weird. She cursed and slammed the car door, and walked off down the road at a panicked pace. The world seemed empty of people. Far too quiet.
‘…Hello?’ she called down the street. No answer. ‘Hello!’ she called louder. Nothing. Not a single car on the roads; no sign of anyone as she wandered. The world was empty, silent as a grave.
Down the main road away from town, something caught her eye. Looking over the iron railing by the sea, Tabitha saw a huge black shape beneath the waves. It looked like a kraken or a sunken ship, strewn in fairy lights. What was it, a submarine? The water was too shallow here, surely. The wind blew cold. She looked around to see twisting smoke, rising up all over town along the bay. It looked like a warzone. Her next footstep sent a cracked smartphone skittering expensively across the pavement. Tabitha went to pick it up, then changed her mind. Strange to find a smartphone just lying around on the pavement, broken or not. She stood up and looked around, and left it alone like evidence at a crime scene.
‘Hello?’ she called out again, jogging down the road towards her mum’s house. ‘Hello!’ nothing but silence. An empty world. No one answered their doors when she knocked. This was beyond strange now; it was frightening.
The daylight was cold and hard, and made the grey world greyer. Tabitha hurried on and turned a street corner. She stopped suddenly, staring at shapes on the road. Pale leathery forms tumbled in the wind like popped lilos. Skins. Tabitha put her rough hands to her mouth, felt the sickness rising up. They were people. Corpses. Boned and gutted, just haircuts and skin, dried up and drained out and flapping down the pavement in the breeze. One skin was draped over the kerb beside her; another tangled up in a fallen mountain bike on the road. Tabitha ran back around the corner and vomited over the rusted railing by the sea. Out there in the harbour by the bobbing boats something caught her eye, caught her breath. Another black lurking mass, a creature in the ocean. It looked like a bone-clad squid, a writhing submarine. Tabitha stared in horror. The black shape reached up a tree-thick tentacle from the water and pulled a fishing boat down into the deep. It smashed and twisted the boat idly into its mouth, hidden in a mess of arms. Tabitha could only watch in disbelief. A sudden metal shriek shot through the silence, echoing down the road. She turned to see a pair of silver spiders, scuttling down the street towards her.
‘Get away!’ she yelled, waving her arms. The nearest spider jumped and clutched her wrist, clawing her flesh. Tabitha screamed, reacted. The spider fell to the road with a knuckle imprint in its head, scratching around in a daze. Tabitha looked at her balled-up fist, solid and grey. She hadn’t felt a thing. The other spider pounced, and she leapt away. Before it could turn around she jumped in and hit it, then hit it harder. It staggered on the road. She ran back over and wrenched the carving knife from the dead one, and stuck it deep into the second. A metal scream, and the thing dropped dead. She wrestled the knife back out with a squelch.
‘I’ll kill you!’ she yelled at the last spider, the one with her knuckle print in its head. Tabitha felt her pulse pounding. She’d never been in a fight. The spider was still drooling for the scent of her. Crawling towards her. Edging its tongue out hungrily.
‘I’m warning you!’ she said, pointing the knife at it. She’d never said that before in her life. She’d never really stood up to anything before. The spider scuttled towards her regardless, and leapt. Tabitha jumped away, but too slow. The thing sank a claw into her side and dragged her screaming to the road, and leapt on top of her. Slid its tongue out towards her face. Tabitha yelled, gripping the spike and wrestling it away. Panicking, she stuck the knife deep into the spider’s head. The blade squeaked in through the metal skin and suddenly the spider was a dead bleeding weight on top of her. Gasping, she struggled out of its cage of dead legs. She staggered up and backed away, and held the knife out at nothing around her. Breathed heavy. Staring, wide-eyed, looking for danger on the empty road. She glanced down at her ripped t-shirt and the silver blood that streamed from her side. She sat down on the kerb and lifted her t-shirt up, only to see the wound healing up before her eyes. The spider’s venom was in her veins though. She could feel it, like a deep scalding chill. It hadn’t killed her the first time though; why should it kill her now? She waited a minute on the kerb, and the cold rush faded from her veins. She stood up and felt alright. No numb tingling; no thumping pain in her chest. She tucked the silver-bloodied knife into her belt and ran down the street for her mum’s house.
Tabitha reached the suburbs gasping for breath, far up the hill away from town. All the houses were empty here too. Every street was lifeless. Nothing but the odd seagull overhead. A garden gnome smiled from a shrubby garden outside a bungalow, oblivious to the eerie silent world. Tabitha leapt the garden wall and looked in the windows, but there was only gloom inside. It was the same in every house she peered into. Pale sheets around her caught her eye though, tumbling on the road or tangled up against hedges. They weren’t sheets though… they’d been people. She didn’t look; she couldn’t. Every time she saw an empty skin she crossed the street. She didn’t feel sadness, only shock. Her fear took priority. Prey was selfish.
‘Hello? Mum?’ said Tabitha, closing her mum’s front door behind her. Right away, the murky light in the house set her on edge. The curtains hadn’t been opened, and that was very un-Mum.
‘Mum?’ she called out. She walked slowly down the hallway, checked the kitchen and the living room. There was a smell from the kitchen like sour milk, and the closed blinds gave her childhood home a dim, languid light.
‘Mum,’ she called up to the bedrooms, climbing the steep staircase. Her insides felt like concrete. She touched an old photo of Dad, hanging on the wall at the top of the stairs. He was smiling; he’d always been smiling. His grin was almost a gurn. He was always scruffy and daft, wearing that dirty old jacket and turned-up corduroys. Shirts he could never be bothered to iron. He’d always dressed like an old man. Tabitha felt a pain push through her as she stroked the photo, like a shard of glass in her heart. Not just for Dad, though. There was already a fresh weight of dread creeping over her in the silence.
‘Tell me she’s alright Dad,’ she whispered to the photo, voice trembling. ‘Don’t make me go in. Don’t make me go in.’ Her dad’s picture just smiled though, gently oblivious. Smiled to her from history. Tabitha knew what was coming. She felt all her life and joy draining out, and only cold hard horror in its place. She didn’t want to turn away from Dad’s picture.
‘Mum,’ she said quietly, hoping against hope, looking at the bedroom door. There was a smell coming through underneath it, and the sound of flies buzzing inside. Tabitha placed a grey hand on the door and pushed gently, slowly. She didn’t want to see everything. She only wanted to be sure. She peered through the gap in the door, only inches wide. She saw a shoe on the lilac carpet. And Mum’s desk, a neat clutter of perfume bottles and jewellery boxes. Only one of the five ever had jewellery in it, Tabitha remembered. The rest of them were full of shells and pebbles and dusty old feathers, and twigs and ‘artefacts’ from when all three of them went on their walks. Mum had kept everything. Her fluffy old dressing gown still warmed the chair it was draped on. Behind it was the little heart on the mirror, drawn in red lipstick. Mum had told her off when she caught her drawing it, until she saw it was a love heart with MUM written inside it. In ten years, Mum had never wiped it off. Tabitha didn’t open the bedroom door any wider. She couldn’t. Looking in the mirror, she didn’t need to. She glimpsed the reflection and saw a lifeless shape on the bed, half-hidden in the dim light of the drawn curtains. Tabitha’s heart and strength and love fell out of her then, and what little of the bedroom she saw through the half-open door became a teary blur. It was Dad all over again; the deepest kind of pain. It ended her world, ripped her heart in two. Tabitha burst into tears. She jumped as something brushed against her hair; a note taped to the door. It didn’t say her name on the front, just My beautiful girl. Tabitha picked it off the door and unfolded it. Gently she closed the bedroom door and stood trembling on the landing. The letter was written in a hurried scrawl, so unlike her mum’s usual notes. She had to blink the tears away just to read it.
My Tabitha.
Don’t come in love, please. I’ve gone to be with your Dad now.
I can’t put into words what I’m feeling. I’ve tried to get to you but I can’t, I feel so helpless. If you find this, just know that I love you more than anything in the world. It’s all happened so quickly. The phones aren’t working, I’ve tried over and over to talk to you. I’m so sorry my beautiful girl. I tried to come to you, but there were things on the pavements. One got me in the leg and I ran back inside. I don’t know what’s happening.
There’s too much to say, I can’t put it all into words. I’m going to go and lie down now love, I feel so faint. I hope that you and God will forgive me for leaving you.
Don’t worry love, and don’t be sad. Me and your Dad will see you when you come to be with God. I’ve left plenty of sleeping tablets in the bathroom if you need them. But only if there’s no other way.
Whatever happens love, don’t be scared. We’ll always love you and we’ll be waiting for you. Do what you think is best, and remember that we’ll always be watching over you.
See you soon, my beautiful little girl. All my love, always,
Mum xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tabitha wiped away her tears. She felt shell shocked. Her mum had always left notes around for her, to tell her she was out and when she
was getting back. Except… she wasn’t coming back this time. She’d never see her again. She could make out a crinkled dot on the bottom of the note, where a tear had fallen and dried. Her mum’s. She kissed the note and tucked it inside her bra, close to her heart. She thought that she should give Mum a proper burial, but how could she? Mum said not to come in, please… so she wouldn’t. That was what Mum wanted. Tabitha laid her palm on the door, sank to the carpet. Cried out every tear she had. She’d always thought she’d had her heart ripped out for good when Dad died, and it could never hurt like that again. But there it was again, that terrible empty feeling, like all the light and love had bled from the world.
Tabitha’s eyes were pink and bloodshot when she looked around again at the landing. Blinking out of a heartbroken trance that felt hours long, she saw her mum’s old powder-blue ribbon tied around the door handle. Sniffling, Tabitha picked the knot and took it off to hold it. Should she give her a funeral? How could she not? But… Mum had said not to come in. That was the best thing to do then. She didn’t want to go inside anyway, not really. She wanted her mum to stay as a bright happy thought, distant and holy. Her impish grin, her sunglasses on, sitting in the deck chair in the sunny back garden. That’s how she’d remember her. Tabitha tied the ribbon around her belt and knotted it off, and kissed Dad’s photo as she went back downstairs. Numb.