Soul Taker

by John Garforth

  Then one sweltering summer night, when Jake was laying on top of his sleeping bag, his uncle came and lay with him, made him do things that he didn’t want to. Jake was 10 years old and he knew it was wrong, but he couldn’t stop him and he had no one to tell.

  Four years later, his mother found out what was going on, too hot to sleep, she walked out onto the landing and found her naked lover lying on top of Jake. There was no argument or row, she didn’t dare wake her husband and tell him what his brother was doing to Jake, because she knew that Stan would tell him what his wife did in the afternoons, she was backed into a corner, so, racked with guilt, she simply turned around and walked away. Jake found her out in the garden the next day, hanging from the swing that she’d bought him for his 3rd birthday.

  Life went on pretty much the same, Jake did the washing, cleaning and cooking, his uncle moved on and his drunken father finally lost his job at the train station, Jake struggled on as best he could, doing odd jobs around the town. Eventually, on his sixteenth birthday he simply put what little he had in a bag, then strolled out of the door, his father stopped him in the yard.

  “Where you going boy?” He asked, scratching at three days of stubble on his face.

  “I’m leaving, so get out of my way.” Jake at sixteen stood 6ft high and was already broad in the shoulder.

  “No, you’re not kid, you’re the only one bringing in any money, I’m your Dad and I say you’re staying.” With the back of his hand he slapped Jake across the face, just to emphasise his authority.

  A cheap ring he was wearing cut the boy’s face, blood began running down his cheek, Jake didn’t lower his head in submission, he looked his father straight in his bleary eyes. Then he hit him on the side of the head, his punch was like lightening, it caught the older man by surprise and knocked him to the ground. Jake dropped to his knees and hit him again and again and again, coldly and quietly, in fact he didn’t stop until a couple of neighbours dragged him off. His father’s face looked like a joint of fresh slaughtered beef, Jake dusted the dirt from his knees, looked each of his neighbours in the eye, shook their hands, thanked them, then turned on his heel and walked away.

  • • •

  It was dark, it had always been dark, but now it was new and it had never been new before, for hundreds of thousands of years, there had been nothing, it had never known anything other than nothing, nothing was good, nothing was a comfort. But now there were thoughts, thoughts were uncomfortable, where had thoughts come from? Thoughts were difficult and complicated, it liked comfort much more than it liked thoughts.

  It had been still forever, always fixed and fastened, held in check, anchored and safe, but now, it was drifting, edging slowly forward, pushing against the current, on a frothy, wide torrent of time, a rock, in the middle of a roaring river, sweeping past him on both sides. More thoughts now, along with senses and sounds, senses were good, he liked senses, but he wasn’t sure about sounds, but they were much better than thoughts.

  What made him become a he? Everything was changing, he didn’t like change and began to feel cross, perhaps cross would give him comfort, but cross was not a good sense, it was weak. So, he picked anger and felt sure that this was the best, but then he remembered that in the beginning there had been nothing and nothing was still better than the best.

  He lay submerged in a primordial soup of liquid flesh, its rounded oily waves rocked him gently, a pink and shiny place, that was warm and full of comfort. So many thoughts were crowding in now, demanding attention, too many to listen to, but pink was good, dark had always been a comfort, but pink was sustaining and felt good, the more he absorbed, the more he wanted. He felt stronger now and was drawn to the magnificent fizzing blue flashes that laced his bountiful pink, cautiously, but with growing confidence, he absorbed a little.

  The experience was cathartic, for the first time since his awakening, he had fed upon the elemental life force of another living being. It was incredible, the hit to his system was overwhelming, instantly addictive, glands poured a torrent of hormones into his system. He had no eyes, but his awareness and vision of the world around him cleared, his mind sharpened and his telepathic abilities blossomed, he had found his purpose, his raison d’étre.

  For eons he’d lain in the darkness without sense, thought or sound, weak and unaware, but now the wilderness was behind him, his time had come and with it came strength, energy and a ruthless desire to dominate. Ancient racial memories stirred within his cerebrum, stored there for many a thousand millennia, an anonymous parental gift from a time when the Earth had barely cooled, passed down by beings that had ravaged and laid waste to the entire Milky Way. Then, before moving on to the next Galaxy, they had sown their young amongst the sterile stars, Cuckoo’s eggs, waiting for the abundance of life to re-populate the planets.

  His Ancestors were the Alpha predators of the known universe, the destroyers of planets, where civilisation flowered, they devoured and stamped it into extinction, such was his birth right. There were others of his kind on this planet and it troubled him, his brothers and sisters, born from the same clutch of eggs, they would compete to ‘feed and leave’ as he would. When all life was extinct, the oceans empty and every living cell consumed, the strongest sibling would eat all the rest and then move on. He must prepare, outwit them all, make sure that he got the lions share, instinct told him that they would steal and cheat if they could, take what was his and grow stronger than him.

  He knew what to do, as his self-awareness burgeoned, genetic triggers released alien endorphins that interacted with waiting receptors in his giant brain. Detailed blueprints and plans were downloaded onto his Cortex, intelligence gleaned from the distant reaches of the universe, honed on the anvil of extermination and distilled over countless millions of years, was gifted to him by his absent parents. Tried and tested methods, tricks and devices that had brought extinction to trillions of life forms.

  Beings that had struggled to grow from the basic building blocks of life, sophisticated, intelligent civilisations that had come to dominate their home worlds, bright beacons of hope in an otherwise hostile universe. Attainment, sophistication and Scientific acumen were the pre-curser to he and his siblings awakening, his biology, had by necessity, evolved a unique sensitivity to artificial distortions of time and space. These were prime indicators of a civilisation that was ripe for harvesting, the recent nuclear war had not quite tipped the balance, it was the time travel that had proved to be the wakeup call.

  As the Italian cities were re-born, the indigenous populations, their DNA shattered and broken by Nuclear war and sixty years of death, began a danse macabre. On their resurrection, various random and unconnected body parts searched in vain to find their ‘parent’, wandering the streets aimlessly like a vision from hell. In desperation, they began to fuse and re-assemble into new structures, these shuffling horrors became known as the ‘Joiners’. Wandering around the cities, hoovering up all the desperately frightened and confused miscreation’s.

  Eventually, their size and weight became unsustainable and they were no longer viable, but hope was there, the Soul Taker, silently and gently, guided them along their next evolutionary step. Gathering together in herds, they walked, slid and crawled to where they were directed, in the case of Rome it was the Colosseum.

  Once assembled inside the ancient amphitheatre, calm protected and safe, the horrendously disfigured would slip into the warm pink soup, confident that they would emerge whole again and in a better world. The nutritious gel would envelope them like a womb, flesh and bone would dissolve painlessly into the pink fluid. Then the sentient personality of the resurrected would begin a spiritual journey, crossing over to a new existence beyond the physical world

  A fluke of evolution, triggered by intense radiation, created a talent unparalleled in any species throughout the universe and made the Soul Takers the most dangerous predator of the entire Galaxy. This unique talent that was forged in the heart of its parent sun, was its pow
er to harvest, with the utmost care, the life essence of every individual it ensnared, the thoughts, emotions and memories of every victim is stored in a conducive environment, to be consumed at a later date. Utilising its enormous telepathic powers, all personal details are carefully uploaded to Rapture. But the Soul Takers most astonishing ability is to maintain a functioning, carefully controlled afterlife for every life force it stores in the telepathic ether.

  A Spiders web in another dimension, a place where victims live a life divorced from reality, a place that resonates with their own pre- conceived ideas of an afterlife. In reality, a clever larder for keeping food fresh, a cruel trick, where its victims are lulled into a false sense of security, until such times as the Soul Taker feels like feeding.

  CHAPTER 13

  Piper, dressed in black combat gear and carrying an M4A1 carbine as well as her Glock, slipped out of the side door and into the night. There were two Helicopters parked out in front of launch control, both fully loaded and ready for take-off. Most of the personal had already left, flown down to the big base that the Americans had built just outside Naples. The Brigadier General, Jake, Mary, Piper and four Marines were all that were left, all milling about, getting ready to board.

  Jake winked solemnly at Piper as he pulled his balaclava over his head and backed into the shadows, Piper followed his lead. Silently, they crept away and into the night, Piper was the only one that knew the secret entrance to the Molers Burrows, so she led the way. About two hundred yards from Launch control, was a blackened broken tree trunk, one among many, but this one had collapsed into the shape of a number 4. Piper led Jake around the back of it and to a Mosaic tiled entrance with burnt out walkway leading down to the old Berlin underground system. There was a white sign that was still fixed to the wall, bearing the words ‘Bahnhof Tempelhof’, the set of rubble strewn stairs that ran down into the darkness were cracked and uneven.

  This time Jake led the way, both had a bright light strapped to their foreheads, reflecting plenty of light onto the stairs and into the dark tunnel that they eventually emerged into. There weren’t many benefits to a nuclear blasted wasteland, but the lack of vermin was a definite bonus. One more set of steps and they reached the platform, one end of which had collapsed, debris spilling down onto the rails.

  The other end of the platform was a black hole, water dripped loudly into unseen puddles, a wind sighed softly in the darkness. Piper led the way across the concrete platform to a metal door that was set into the curved, white tiled wall by the blocked end of the tunnel. Fastened to the wall at the side of the door was an old public telephone, the receiver still on the cradle. Piper picked it up and put it to her ear, there was a dialling tone, she dialled 1331 and waited for an answer.

  There was a click and a man’s voice said, “Hello.”

  Piper turned and looked at Jake, nodding her head.

  “Hello,” she said, “is that Bakerstop 4?”

  “Yes,” came the guarded reply

  “My name is Piper, I’m trying to contact Anna Muller, she knows me and told me I could ring her, she gave me this number.”

  “Right, just hold on a minute, I’ll go get her, she’s round here somewhere.”

  Piper could hear the phone being laid down and the noise of someone walking away. She froze, the hairs on the back of her neck, standing on end, there was the faintest of sounds drifting down from the stairwell, it seemed that someone had found the staircase and was coming down the steps behind them. Jake had heard it too and moved silently across the rubble strewn tiled floor towards the stairwell. There was the sound of voices chattering on the shortwave, whoever it was, they were not trying to hide their presence, Piper began to realise that they’d been followed.

  “Hello,” it was Anna’s familiar voice, “is that you Piper, good to hear from you, what’s happening?”

  “Listen Anna, there are all kinds of developments, I was trying to get to you so that we could talk. But It seems that I’ve been followed and this contact area compromised, so I’m going to hang up now and lead them away from here. But just one thing Anna, before I go, the people that are following me will probably make me go to Naples in Italy. I do need to talk to you Anna, If I can, so I’ll try the underground there, get someone to leave a note, if you can. Bye Anna.”

  She just had time to hear Anna say, “Bye Piper,” before she put the phone down. She walked away and over to Jake at the foot of the stairs. She stopped halfway, listening, looking in the direction of the open tunnel.

  “What’s the matter?” Asked Jake, taking a couple of steps towards her, “what is it, what can you hear?”

  “It’s probably nothing,” she raised her hand to silence him, then cocked her head, listening, “there, did you hear that? It’s like a mewling, squeaking noise, it sounds like its being carried on the wind”

  Jake walked to the edge of the platform and peered into the darkness.

  “I got through,” continued Piper, talking to the back of his head, “but I couldn’t talk much, I daren’t compromise that phone. I did tell her we’ll probably end up in Naples, that’s if they don’t shoot us for desertion.”

  “That sounds like a clever idea, in fact I might do it right now.”

  Jake and Piper, both turned at the same time, Brigadier General Brightside had reached the bottom of the staircase and was looking across at them. He wasn’t smiling. Mary was behind him, looking defiantly at Piper.

  There was no warmth in the look that Piper returned, it was obvious that Mary had betrayed them.

  “Judas,” she mouthed at her.

  “I couldn’t let you do it Piper,” she blurted out, “you as well Jake, both of you would have been branded as deserters, your lives ruined, your careers shattered. The Army has a long memory and it never forgives. If you give up now and come back with us, then perhaps the General will show some leniency.”

  “No, I won’t, this is totally unacceptable,” Brightside barked the words like an order, “I can’t forgive the fact that two of my finest officers, people who I would have trusted with my own life, would sneak away in the night, letting everybody down with your selfish, reckless and immature behaviour.”

  He looked at them both, turning his head from one to the other, apparently lost for words, distress and anger etched on his face.

  “What the hell did you really think you were doing,” he continued, “you’re a pair of bloody fools for acting in such a selfish, reckless way. You’re both an embarrassing, disappointment and you’ve left me with no other option, but to charge the both of you with desertion. When we get to Naples, I will personally see to it, that you are both Court-Martialled, you’re a disgrace to the uniform that you wear and I hope that they throw the book at the pair of you.”

  Piper glanced at Jake, both were looking sheepish, the Brigadier Generals words had really stung them.

  “Yes Sir, sorry Sir,” said Piper, trying to contain the situation, “but it was no reflection on you. I just had to go out looking for the Molers, they were good to me and the others and they were there when we needed them, they didn’t deserve being left high and dry, I couldn’t just walk away without telling them what was going on. The Molers are human beings, just like you and me Sir, they could be our allies against these monsters that we’ve all created. It went against every patriotic bone in my body to turn my back on an ally, the US army taught me better than that Sir. May I also say that none of this was Colonel Linderman’s fault, he only came along to look after me, he was concerned for my safety and he was acting with the best of intensions, Sir.”

  “She’s right Sir,” Mary interrupted, “there was no malice or gain in what she was doing. She thought it was the best she could do for her companions and her country.”

  The Brigadier General turned and looked at Piper long and hard, shaking his head from side to side. She thought she saw a flicker of a smile cross his lips.

  “You tell a very good story Colonel Reed, but be that as it may, why didn’t
you come to me in the first place and ask me for permission, instead of disobeying orders and sneaking off?”

  “Because I was afraid that you’d have said no Sir, then that would mean that I would be not only disobeying a direct order, but I would have given my plans away. You see Sir, that’s another thing I’ve learnt in the army, always keep your cards close to your chest Sir.”

  It was then that Jake cut in to the conversation.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt everybody, but I think it would be a good idea if maybe we all got out of here quickly, there’s something coming down this tunnel towards us and it doesn’t sound good.”

  As soon as the words left his mouth, the first rat leapt onto the platform, the screaming, squeaking pack were just behind. Piper was horrified, not because it was a rat, she wasn’t squeamish, she’d dealt with plenty of them as a girl, no, it was the size of it. It was as big as a dog, black or very deep brown, it’s mouth full of teeth, glinting white in the Flashlight.

  She whipped out the Glock and shot it once in the head, it fell sideways onto the rails. That’s when the rest arrived, at least a dozen, all big and all vicious, the smell of fresh meat was driving them wild. Two of them began screaming and growling like cats as they fought over the body on the rails. The others ran at Piper and the rest of the team, leaping onto their thighs and scrabbling as they tried to climb up to their face. Mary began to scream hysterically, as one of the giants clawed its way on to her chest and began lunging at her neck. Jake and Brightside were busy trying to grapple with the beasts that were crawling up their legs and knock them to the ground, to get a clear shot.

  “Stand still,” Piper screamed at Mary to stop her panicking, it seemed to work, she managed to stop thrashing about for just a moment. That was all the time that Piper needed, she fired and the animal dropped to the ground. Mary shot the next one that was near her with her own pistol. Piper moved over to her and pushed her towards the stairs, her eyes searching the platform for movement. They began to climb the backwards, the two men followed, their weapons ready, but nothing came after them.