As the Light Dies

by M. D. Woodham

  Mick bared his dirty teeth and black gums in what looked like a horrific smile and he dribbled black fluid on to the back of the woman’s neck as she slithered around under him and although Steve didn’t look directly at the woman,couldn’t bring himself to, he saw the mess she was in and thought it looked like Mick was trying to dig a hole right through her.

  “RUN!” is all Steve had to say and Mick opened his mouth unnaturally wide and bellowed his gurgle as loud as he could, loud enough for the whole rig to hear. On hearing Steve’s yell Ken’s whole body twitched and Katie’s head twitched. Neither of them looked back, they didn’t need to, they just put their heads down and ran!

  CHAPTER 15

  Collin froze to the spot unsure what he was seeing. He tried his best to focus despite the darkness, and for a second he thought he’d actually spooked himself over nothing and was just about to move on whenit moved and he realised he was looking at someone. He was looking at Leann.

  He cocked his head to the side frowning.“Leann! Is that you? Why are you down there? Are you ok?”

  He hurried towards her hunching over a little. Leann brought a shaky hand up by her face and pointed towards the front of the shop.“Out there,”she said barely audible.

  “What?”said Collin moving closer.

  “Shush Collin! Hide. Please.Just get down!”

  “What!”said Collin. He was confused, his mind was running at a hundred miles an hour trying to work out what was happening and why Leann was hiding in the dark when there was an almighty thwack on the front doors. Collin stopped and whipped his head up to look. Leann shrank back disappearing behind the kid’s ride-on car.

  “Collin, please don’t go near the doors. Stay away, keep back from the windows.”

  Collin couldn’t figure out what was wrong, why did Leann want him to stay away from the windows. Why was she hiding and what was hitting the glass? He stared at the front of the supermarket and saw a shimmer of movement outside in the ash and snow. He walked forwards towards the front of the supermarket, moving closer to the thick reinforced glass that made up the shop front.

  “Collin please,” Leann pleaded.

  He saw the flutter again as though someone was just outside moving around just too deep in to the ashy snow to be seen clearly. Then the thwack came again, making him jump.

  “Collin, please don’t go near the glass,”Leann pleaded again.

  Hearing her Collin leaned back on his heels about to turn and go back to her when he caught a tiny glimpse of what he thought looked like a figure just outside the doors and it was lying on the ground.

  Holy shit, he thought.“Hang on a sec,”he told her,“I think I can see someone.”

  “No Collin no, don’t!Don’t go!”

  He barely heard Leann’s murmur as he made his approach towards the shop front, all he heard were her trainers squeaking on the floor as she shuffled further in behind the machines.

  Burrowing in,he thought, and he wondered.What could’ve possibly happened? He needed to see, needed to know. Especially now that his overactive imagination was telling him that he could see a body!

  Then something started rubbing along the outside of the glass in front of him. It squealed with friction.

  “Collin?”Leann called.

  He wanted to go back to her, knew he should. But he needed to see what was outside, see if itwasa person lying on the ground or if his eyes were just playing tricks on him. He looked down where he had seen what he thought was a figure but the ash had thickened and closed in hiding what he’d seen.Damn,he thought taking another half step ready for another thwack at the window or for whatever it was to rub up against the glass again. When nothing happened he took another half step almost a shuffle and the ash cleared away just enough for him to see and he half gasped and called back to Leann.“Hey Leann, Maggie’s fallen over!”

  “No Collin,DONT!” Leann shouted, but she was too late. Collin was already trying to open the front doors, trying to slide them apart but they were stuck fast. They were wedged at the bottom. He dropped to his knees to focus his energy on the bottom and there was another thump against the glass just above him on the next panel along. Something dark and misshapen pressed up against the glass and started to sink down the window squealing against the glass as it descended.

  Frowning trying to figure this out Collin glanced back at Maggie as the blob against the window continued squealing towards the ground.It was her, he thought. It was Mad Maggie, he was sure of it. She was lying on her back, face up and as the black snow danced around her he was just able to make out her eyes, they were still open. He stared at her for a second waiting for her to move, certain she would, but she didn’t. He went to tap the glass then remembered the black squealing thing and he looked at it. It was still sliding down the glass!

  He reached out quickly and slapped a palm against the glass and called out.“Maggie? Hey, Maggie are you ok?”

  She didn’t move. He shuffled closer to the glass wanting a better look, hearing Leann behind him pleading for him to come back.Just a second, he thought and then he saw her.

  He wished he hadn’t, he was unnerved when he finally got a half decent look and he didn’t know what to think. She looked like she was screaming.

  He leaned back a little still looking at her. Her face was contorted all out of shape, twisted in to a horrifically tormented scream. He found it hard to look at her, scary even! He called to her again,“Maggie? Hey, Maggie, are you ok!”

  She didn’t budge. He noticed that flutter in the ash again. He looked up at it and saw it move away from the dark squealing lump that had reached the ground without him realising. The shimmer moved towards him. Towards Maggie!

  A barely visible figure, a shadow in the darkness swam through the dancing black snow towards Maggie and disappeared at the last second moving deeper in to the ashy snow around Maggie’s body that was mostly out of sight. Collin’s mind had gone blank, he couldn’t think of anything to do. He leaned a little closer to the glass trying desperately to see when suddenly Maggie’s body was snatched away in to the darkness. Collin flinched back with fright and looked down at where she’d been laying and nearly bit his tongue off with shock! Maggie’s body had been dragged away but her head remained where it had been, staring at him silently screaming!

  Collin pushed himself back from the window with a jolt and knelt there in a dazed shock.

  He couldn’t take his eyes off Maggie’s head, despite the horror of it he just couldn’t look away.

  He knelt there glued to the spot just looking, too scared to actually move. He felt faint and realised he was holding his breath. He tried to breathe and started hyperventilating as he stared at Maggie’s screaming head. He tried counting his breaths in and then out again, he felt dizzy and faint from holding his breath for so long and then hyperventilating.

  He heard Leann calling for him again but couldn’t answer. He closed his eyes, it was the only way he could break contact with Maggie’s screaming head, and gradually he started to gain control of his breathing. It wasn’t great but it was better and he didn’t feel so faint. He went to get back up and realised that he was rigid. He was too scared to move.What if I’m being watched, he thought,what if they can see my but I can’t see them, he wondered? He started a countdown from ten, his plan was that when he hit zero he’d get up and go back to Leann but at the count of eight the hazy figure came back out of the darkness.

  Collin watched transfixed as it went to the lump that had just slid down the glass, the figure moved like it was made of smoke and dust only slightly darker than the dark snow that surrounded it. It reached out and started sliding the black lump back up the glass.

  Collin watched the black shape squeal back up the glass until whatever it was stopped three quarters of the way up and held there for a second before it moved. It turned ever so slightly to the right, then back to the centre and then over to the left a little, and then back to the centre again. Then it shook from side to side a few times, bef
ore it started thumping the back of the glass, disappearing and reappearing as it leaned forwards out of view and then came rushing back hitting the glass. It thumped the glass several times getting harder with every strike until it suddenly fell and landed right beside Maggie’s head, right in front of Collin and all the air he managed to work back up to filling his lungs with, rushed back out, and his stomach started cramping.

  The odd dark shape was what was left of Jimmy’s head.

  Collin’s body completely locked up freezing him to the spot.

  Jimmy’s face hung from the bone like an old rubber Halloween mask that had been pulled and stretched beyond all recognition to the point of tearing. His lips were gone leaving his teeth and gums horribly exposed. His right eye looked like it had been squeezed and had burst in its socket, and a torn flap of skin hung loosely from his forehead quivering in the wind. Jimmy’s head was still attached to his body and the body seemed to shake a little as if he was shivering or someone was doing something to his legs out of sight under the cover of darkness.

  Collin watched helplessly unable to move as Jimmy’s head rolled over with the movement. Acid rose up from Collin’s stomach burning his throat. Jimmy’s head had been opened up by force. The skin from his bald patch had been ripped open, pulled away from the skull underneath where there was a lumpy window into Jimmy’s hollowed out head.

  Collin stared in through the back of Jimmy’s empty head paralysed with fear as his lips turned blue through lack of oxygen. The shimmering movement reappeared and this time Collin saw a hand reach out from the black snow towards Maggie’s severed head. It was black and gnarly. Collin thought that it looked burned and charred as it wrapped its meaty fingers around Maggie’s twisted jaw and lifted her head up and carried it off in to the darkness.

  For a split second Collin felt like Maggie was staring at him, silently screaming, in utter terror begging with her eyes for him to do something, begging him for help!

  Collin was in an oxygen starved daze unable to believe what was going on right in front of him. The ash black snow danced in all directions trying to confuse him. He felt dizzy. He felt faint.

  A pair of legs appeared a few feet back from the window for a moment before they were smothered behind the wall of black snow. Collin watched holding his eyes open wide looking for any little movement wanting to see who was out there, wanting to see who had done this. He was slowly being hypnotised by the mesmerising movements of the dancing ash as it rushed against the glass. It made him feel like he was moving forwards, sliding towards it, being pulled in, dragged into the darkness.

  “Shit!”he said and he dug his heels in pressing them hard in to the unforgiving linoleum floor and clawed at it with both hands trying to anchor himself to the spot. He saw a vague outline of a head and torso standing outside. It didn’t move. It just stood there watching and waiting.

  Shit it’s watching me, he thought.

  The figure held its arms up as though holding its hands over its ears. Suddenly it looked like it had a badly misshapen head. It almost looked like the figure hadtwo heads, thought Collin thinking of the elephant man. It really did look like one head had grown out of the other like a giant cyst.

  The figure jerked a little like it was under strain and it turned to the side slightly and Collin knew that it wasn’t deformed at all. It was holding Maggie’s head up to its face. The figure was enshrouded again, and before Collin had time to imagine any number of terrible things Maggie’s head landed back in front of him, this time facing in to the supermarket staring in through the glass looking at Collin with gouged out eyeless sockets.

  Collin gasped filling both of his empty lungs to bursting point at once. He saw tiny veins and tendrils clinging to the bridge of Maggie’s nose poking out from the empty eye sockets. He saw right in to the fleshy tissue behind her eyes. One side had been gouged out a little and blood seeped in to the remaining hole until it overflowed and dribbled down her face like tears of blood. Collins body tried to gasp again but couldn’t, his lungs were locked tight, he saw stars, he needed to breathe but his lungs weren’t working.

  Two meaty palms slammed against the main doors and splayed out. Collin jumped back knocking a waste bin with his elbow sending it flying and banged his head off a steel railing. He looked up and saw the hands still there, and he saw that the right hand had a giant gap between its thumb and forefinger like it had been run part way through a band saw. Collin remembered the truck driver, and that was the trigger for him to move. With no air in his lungs and no strength in his oxygen starved legs he scrambled to his feet and ran forcing his legs to carry him. He called out with a shaky squawky voice as his throat burned,“Run Leann!RUN!”

  As he neared the photo booth and kid’s ride-on toys running all out of shape Leann lurched out of the shadows and joined him. She glanced back and nearly wet herself when she saw the four figures pressed up against the shop front trying to look in at them as they slapped and thumped the glass. The noise reverberated throughout the whole supermarket like thunder.

  Collin darted in to the staff corridor with Leann right behind him clinging on to the hood of his jacket and they collided with each other and tumbled to the floor in a heap. The swing door rattled closed behind them cutting off the noise and blew out the only candle there was in the staff corridor plunging them in to total darkness. The pair of them were gasping for air when Leann suddenly felt hands reaching for her, trying to grab her arm.

  Collin felt it too. Groping, grabbing hands, and they both started screaming!

  CHAPTER 16

  Shelly looked around for something she could use as a weapon in a state of shock and disbelief, she was on survival mode now. She didn’t have time to be anything else.

  At first when she saw figures appear through the flames stumbling and waving their arms, she thought that the ill scientists, the ones that had been put in the med room under quarantine were making a last ditch effort to save themselves and escape the flames,everyone did.

  It became apparent very quickly that it wasn’t like that at all.

  In the first instance the men trying to put the fire out had thought the same as Shelly and they tried to reach out to their burning colleagues desperate to help them and put out their flames, but as soon as the flailing burning figures saw the men advancing to save them, they attacked like a pack of rabid dogs. Their shuffle became an all out sprint and their flailing arms thrashed out and reached purposefully.

  The closest men were overcome in seconds, overpowered and pulled to the ground in utter shock unable to comprehend what their colleagues were trying to do to them. Their protective hoods were torn off and their burning colleagues violently targeted their heads, clawing, swiping, and punching them before repeatedly slamming their heads off the ground until bone cracked and skulls split! Screams echoed unendingly inside the hangar as their burning colleagues dragged them to the ground and started eating them. The men further back tried to ready themselves to push the walking fireballs back but their bio suits melted on to them under the extreme heat burning them and hindering them. They tried holding their extinguishers out at arm’s length to hold them off, but it was no good, their burning colleagues were too fast and violent for them, and when one guy did seem to successfully hold back one of the human torches they ganged up on him. One burning figure after the other would join the first one and then another and another if that’s what it took until they downed the man and moved on to the next victim.

  One man close to Jeff had three of them gang up on him, and as the middle one pounced on to him and knocked him to the ground Shelly saw along with others that the burning figure was actually trying to bite and gnaw at the poor man’s face as his hood was torn free. The burning man filled his fiery mouth with flesh that he tore away as the man screamed burning and bleeding before the human torch focused its attack on his head clawing and tearing clumps of frazzled hair off with burning fingers and smashing his head off the concrete floor with both hands.

&nb
sp; Shelly saw an empty extinguisher lying on the ground and rushed towards it having to hold an arm up to protect her face against the intense heat burning her face through her visor. The flames enshrouding the rabid figures reached high up in to the roof of the hangar like hellish tentacles.

  The protective airtight polythene bubble that had been surrounding them was all but gone now. Shelly grabbed the fire extinguisher and ran to Jeff’s side with it held high above her head as he fought with one of the burning freaks. She reached him as the freak lunged in and bit down on Jeff’s forearm and tore a big chunk out of him severing tendons as he held his arm up in defence. He yelled out in pain as the fireball backed up again. The arm was dead to him now, it hung by his side limp and pouring blood. Shelly swung with all her might bringing her fire extinguisher down hard. The burning figure side stepped and she missed ending up smashing the extinguisher on to the unforgiving concrete floor and painful vibrations shot up her arms buzzing her hands nearly shaking the extinguisher from her hands.

  “WHOA!” said Jeff as her fast moving extinguisher whizzed by his head. He hadn’t realised she was there. The burning figure lunged in at Jeff again. Jeff lifted the nozzle of his extinguisher and forced it in to the thing’s fiery face risking a bite in his other arm.

  He squeezed the leaver and white carbon dioxide spewed out extinguishing its face, and for a second turned it pure white. With the flames momentarily out of the way Jeff got a look at the person’s face and wished he hadn’t. They were unrecognisable, most of their face was gone, charred and burnt, hanging from the bone. The white carbon dioxide powder gave it the look of a melting wax work drooping down over the exposed charred jaw bone. Its eyes were still intact though and through the white film left by the extinguisher they stood out in stark contrast, glazed black eyes stared back at him and Shelly. Jeff couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Black gunk was just starting to seep out of the burnt flesh oozing through the white powder when the flames took over again.