by Lee Isserow
Her lip quivered, and his eyes were drawn down, past her body armour to the gloves on her hands, blades glimmering at the tips of her fingers.
The blood told him the story that she would not, that the Squad had been sending her out on missions, feeding her up on blood of their infected brothers and sisters. Fattening her up. She was three times larger than she was the last time he saw her, but Ben didn't care. She was just as beautiful as she was when they first met.
“Please,” he said. “Don't make me...” the words trailed off. Words wouldn't communicate the wealth of emotions that were rushing through his head. He didn't want to hurt her, he didn't want to hurt anyone. As much as this was a violent incursion, only those that needed to die would die. The yearning for mass destruction fled with his hubris when his army were killed. He asked the blood to share the memories of him pleading with the infected Tacks, all four of them. He watched as the fear in her eyes dissipated, replaced by tears. She shook her head, looked to the ground, not believing what she was experiencing.
He sent her more memories; of the group of blood driven; his realisation that they were no more blood driven than she was; the memories of his guilt as he led Steve straight to them; of the death that followed; of the hideous grin across MacGaulty's face as he slaughtered them; of finding and then losing his father; of his army, over forty people killed to satisfy Steve's hunger for blood and power.
“It can't be true...” she finally said, her lips struggling over each of the words.
“It is.”
“But...”
“You know it is,” he said. “The blood knows it is.”
Her thumbs moved towards the switches on the gloves, trembling against them. She looked him in the eye, and deep in her gut, knew it was all true. With a swift movement, both her thumbs flicked the switches, pulling the blades back into the fingers of the gloves.
They walked across the room to one another and embraced, her feeling so small in his massive new arms. He held her tight, tighter than he had held anyone for as long as he could remember. Somewhere in his great mass, he could feel a part of her still, the blood his 'goblins had drunk down that still coursed through his veins, now watered down by so much more volume, but still there, still as potent as it was the day he first consumed it. The embrace became tighter, the two of them instantly clamped together by massive jaws, teeth tearing through their backs as a 'goblin started drinking them both down.
22
The blood reacted without a thought from Ben. Even if he had had a chance to think, its reaction was not anywhere close to how he would have handled the situation.
As the 'goblin drank him down, with nine rough and misshapen three inch wide teeth penetrating the fleshy meat hanging loosely from Ben's spine, the mindless creature was so fervent about satisfying its hunger-lust that it did not notice the skin between each of its teeth was being torn from the inside out. It was so thin, so fragile, that a split ripped open with ease, up from the bite marks to the base of his skull, and all the way down to his tailbone. The blood exploded out of the broken seam in Ben's skin, a torrent of crimson that wanted nothing more than to destroy whoever attacked its host. Over fifty litres fled the Ben's body in an instant, a tidal wave that encompassed the attacker, devouring him, his blood, the 'goblin.
Tess held Ben's empty frame as the horror continued behind him. The blood was still connected to the massive hole in his back, but the man in her arms was nothing but bones and organs in a flaccid, sagging skin sack.
When the blood was done with their attacker, it spat a dessicated corpse to the floor and returned to Ben's body, filling him back up like an inflatable balloon, until he was full, and even then it had more blood to stuff inside his overstretched pelt, skin tearing and regrowing as it returned an additional twenty litres it had devoured from the man who attacked them. The blood sealed the massive tear in Ben's back, and he stood upright, trying to regain his balance as over seventy litres of blood sloshed around his even larger, taller frame.
He looked down at Tess, a small smile on his round, podgy face, eyes barely pinpricks above cheeks that were each about the size of her head.
“You ok?” he asked.
She nodded, reaching to her back and feeling moist blood on the skin where she had been cut by the 'goblin's teeth.
Ben kicked the corpse over and took a look at the man who tried to kill them. The body was completely exsiccated, but he knew the face, even with the moisture removed and skin sucked close to the bone like it was a layer of vacuum packaging. It was their former team member, Nick. A chill went down Ben's spine, he glanced over to Tess and searched the blood for the answer to a question that was haunting him. It was all too possible that he was being manipulated, that her presence in the centre of the room, just waiting for him, was a distraction, one of Steve's patented misdirections, to leave time for Nick to sneak up and attack.
“I'm not,” she said, catching his eyeline. “I wasn't a distraction. I promise.”
Ben hadn't realised he was broadcasting his fears through the blood whilst he was asking it to search her memories, but as their gazes met, he knew she was telling the truth. He could read it on her face as much as he could read it in the blood.
“Do you know where Steve is?”
She shook her head. “He didn't come in today, off sick.”
“Sick? The blood doesn't let us get sick...”
“Could he have known that you were planning this?”
An uneasiness came over Ben, a psychic gut punch of dread, as he thought about just how much blood Steve could have devoured from his army. Around two hundred litres, probably more, all of it from hosts that were trained to use it. If he drank down even a fraction of that much blood, it would be more than he had managed to quaff from all the blood driven he had killed over the years. With that much educated plasma shooting through his veins, there was a chance, however slim, that he had finally been able to gain the control he had been lusting for since he was first infected.
The idea of all that untapped power at the disposal of someone so cruel and vicious terrified Ben. And if Steve had access to all the possibilities the blood offered, domination over its shape and form, mastery over the free bloods, Ben feared that as skilled as he had become, his former mentor might now be unstoppable.
23
Nixon Ailes cowered behind his desk as a barrage of thunder claps struck his door. He was glad it was reinforced, that he had ordered his entire office reinforced with steel behind the plasterboard, all through the door, with three massive bolts that could resist a small explosion. What the builders of Ailes' armoured sanctuary were not prepared for, was eleven gallons of blood flooding the office through the air conditioning system, incapacitating the occupant and unlocking the door from the inside.
Ben wrenched it open, his loose skin flapping back and forth as he exerted himself. He was all too glad to be greeted by the blood on the other side, and waited for it to make its way back inside his body before entering Ailes' room. He had started getting used to carrying all that extra weight, and was now finding himself left light headed and disoriented whenever the blood left his body in large volumes.
He forced his bulk through the door and inspected the office. Ailes had expensive tastes, a Persian rug at the centre, ten metres square, laden with a massive mahogany desk that looked older than the building they were under. Art lined the walls, paintings by artists that Ben assumed were famous, but couldn't place a style with a name. Behind the desk, Ailes was held to his chair, encased in a gelatinous crimson egg, like a fly in amber. His head popped out at the peak, and he was obviously terrified, even if he was trying to hide it.
“Graham! Listen to me, you're a damn blood puppet, do you hear me? Snap out of it!”
Ben huffed, and continued to walk across the room towards his former boss. He attempted to roll his eyes, but discovered that as he looked up, his vision was obscured by the heavy, flabby brow that lay above them.
“Tess!
” Ailes shouted. “I see you at the door! Help me already! Can't you see Ben is blood driven? Bloody do something!”
“You lied about the blood drive,” she said, coldly.
“You lied about everything,” Ben said.
“Not everything...” Ailes whimpered. “The blood is a threat to national security!”
“It wasn't, and it isn't,” Ben said, insistent. “It only attacks when it's attacked. You could have gone about this with a peaceful mindset, could have tried to understand it rather than attack it, could have educated infectees rather than kill them. This has been a witch hunt from the start, and you've got a damn power-hungry demon leading the charge!”
“You want MacGaulty! I can get you MacGaulty! I'll call him right now, deliver him right to the door, wrapped in a bow!”
“I want to end this,” Ben said, looming over his former employer. “End the hunt, the killing, all of it.”
“You have my guarantee!” Ailes assured him, sweat pouring from his brow, giving him a glossy sheen that matched the slick gossamer texture of the blood his body was encased in. “No more killing, just learning, understanding, education!”
“You're not the guy who's going to be doing the educating.” Ben said, turning his back on Ailes and walking out the door.
“Where are you going?” Ailes shouted after him. “You can't just leave me trapped here!”
“I'm not...” Ben said under his breath, as the blood around Ailes undulated, encasing his head, suffocating him whilst it siphoned his plasma to add to its mass.
When he was drained, the blood slunk to the floor and snaked its way after Ben, climbing up his legs and tearing holes in his calves to rejoin his bulk.
“You didn't have to do that...” Tess said.
“I did. They all have to die. It's the only way we can make sure this doesn't carry on, doesn't start up with a new team all over again.”
Tess scanned the corridors, suddenly aware how quiet and empty it was on the Operations level. “Where are all the staff...?” she asked.
Ben didn't answer. His eyes were closed, breath slow and deep, his conscious mind was no longer in his body, it was floating amidst the thoughts that rocketed through the blood. He was flowing with it, not only through his own veins, but through all the veins of all the other infectees. There were so many of them, across the country, the continent, the world, and he could feel all of them out there. But he knew he couldn't fall into that trap, embracing the beauty and majesty of being connected so intimately to so many people. There was only one infectee in particular that he needed to find. The last that would have to die before this waking nightmare could finally end.
He felt muscles tighten as a smile came to lips.
They weren't Ben's lips, it wasn't Ben's smile.
“Hello Graham,” he heard the lips say. A chuckle followed the words, rippling across the vocal chords over a heavy exhale. “I think you and me need to have a... chat.”
24
“What was that?” Tess asked, as Ben opened his eyes. He gasped for breath. Whilst his mind had been delving deep into the blood, his body had forgotten to keep up the supply of oxygen. Carrying that much blood in his body required vast amounts, and he took huge lungfuls to try and find the balance again.
“Did you hear me?” she asked again. “What the hell was that?”
“Steve,” he grunted, in between inhalations. “He's here.”
“Where?”
“Entrance... He's... He's drunk all the blood down.”
“All the blood?”
“I came here with free blood... lots of free blood...”
“Free blood, that's now... his blood?”
Ben nodded, and composed himself, breath caught, oxygen balance restored in his body.
“You didn't answer my question, about the staff?”
Ben glanced up to the ceiling. Tess followed the direction of his gaze, and her jaw went slack. It was bright red, and four inches lower than it used to be.
“They ran from the Tacks,” Ben explained. “I had the blood waiting over the exits to grab them, to drain them.”
“Where are the bodies?”
“Gone. Eaten away. Dispersed just like they would the blood.”
“That's insane,” she said, feeling a chill as she looked up and down the corridor at the thick mass of blood that clung to every hallway ceiling through the entire level of the facility.
“Needed to be done,” Ben said, taking a deep breath.
“Why?”
Ben spoke to the blood, letting it know that it was time. The ceiling above started coming down towards them, siphoning the blood that had been spread out across all the hallways. When the mass was only a few inches from Ben and Tess's heads, a large point started to form, a funnel with a razor sharp tip that pierced the skin behind Ben's neck. Slowly, the blood began to drain into his body, making him bigger, wider. He and the blood both knew that it was going to be debilitating to just get fatter, and they came to an agreement.
Gritting his teeth, Ben let the blood dislocate his knees. As his skin contorted with the massive amounts of extra plasma, it solidified in his muscles, building and stretching them. It hardened around his bones, ossifying and making them longer, thicker, stronger. Then it did the same to his spine, adding vertebrae, adding ribs. Then it was time for his arms, his wrists, his hands, each bone popped free of the joint, elongated and reattached. Ben thought he was going to pass out from the agony of the de-and-reconstruction, but the blood kept him awake, did its best to try and dull the transmission of pain.
When it was done, and the last drops of blood left the ceiling, closing up the wound at the base of his neck behind it, Ben stood at his full height. His head hit the ceiling before he could do so, now standing at ten foot tall. He held his hands up in front of him, palms twice as wide as they used to be, fingers almost nine inches long. He still carried a massive bulk of blood, but over two hundred litres were dispersed evenly over his new gargantuan frame.
Tess finally regained control of her jaw, and forced herself to blink her eyes, them having been stuck wide for the duration of Ben's transformation. “Are you going to even fit in the elevator? Can it carry that much weight?”
Ben shook his head. But he hadn't been planning on taking the elevator back up. The blood had already arranged for alternative transportation.
25
The middle of the three elevators was inoperative. It's doors stuck wide open. As Ben ducked his head inside, he rose to his full height. Whilst he had been making his way through the Operations level, the blood had cut through the ceiling of the elevator, and created an intricate pulley system in the shaft. Tentacles of blood wrapped themselves around his mammoth waist, creating a body harness that encased his legs, and came up over his shoulders.
“You coming?” he asked Tess.
She nodded. There was nowhere else she could possibly imagine going. And nobody she'd rather be with. A second set of tentacles encased her and formed an identical harness around her. The two bloods connected to one another, and began to lift the two of them up through the elevator shaft.
“You sure it can hold our weight?” she asked.
“It's ten 'goblins strong, sure it'll be fine.”
It didn't feel fine, as they were carried up through the structure, swinging back and forth awkwardly as the blood reeled itself back in to the spool it had formed at the top of the shaft.
As they came to the ground floor, the blood held them in mid air, and a second ruddy rope fell down beside them, stopping just under their feet. Plasma flowed down it, flattening, forming a thick, solid floor beneath them. When it had secured itself to the walls, the harnesses released them, withdrawing to the top of the shaft, letting them stand on their own two feet.
“You going to get a top up?” Tess asked him, indicating to the blood in the ceiling.
He shook his head, and pointed to her.
“Are you sure?”
Ben let a smile come to
his lips, and nodded.
The blood pierced Tess's back and started filtering into her. Her body expanded, skin stretched thin and pale, but it wasn't enough to require massive body augmentation. Ben whispered through the blood to her. Explained to her without words how to speak to the blood, to shape it, to work with it as he did. She took off her gloves, and threw them to the floor. Pulled off the body armour. It was their uniform, their tools. By the time all the blood at the top of the lift shaft had entered her, she was ready. More than ready, she was driven, with the blood as her copilot.
26
A massive black blade slid between the doors of the elevator. The tip split into two down the middle, curving round and grabbing hold of a door, like fingerless hands. The mechanism screamed as Ben wrenched the doors apart with the aid of the blood reinforcing his muscles.
“Show off,” grunted a gurgling deep voice that echoed throughout the grand entrance.
Ben stepped out, flanked by Tess, the two of them trying not to react as they saw Steve waiting for them. He was standing at sixteen feet tall, arms almost seven feet long, hands stretching out over a foot. His circumference had expanded to the point that he might well be wider than an elephant. Ben couldn't help but wonder how he expected to ever leave the building, let alone drive anywhere or take public transport. His tightly stretched skin undulated, as if snakes were crawling beneath it. When they got too big, the diaphanous layers of epidermis tore open, the blood doing its best to seal the wounds back up as more formed elsewhere on the gigantic monster's body. Behind him, an angry throng of tentacles slapped back and forth wildly in the air, black diamond tips on each of them.
“Really?” Ben said, with a wry tone. “I'm the show off?”
“This ain't showing off, boy. This is evolution. You'd know that if you listened to it. Stuff wants to change us, make us better.”
“You think this is better?” he said, looking down at his own grotesque new proportions, then back up to Steve's hideously misshapen body. “It wants something better for us, but it's not this. And it's certainly not the trail of bodies we've both left behind us.”