Spawn

by Shaun Hutson

  SPAWN

  As he turned to open the door a particularly violent eruption of flame exploded before him. Harold shrieked and felt one side of his face sizzling. The skin rose swiftly into blisters which immediately burst, the welts hardening as the fire stripped his flesh away as surely as if someone had thrust a blow torch at him. Harold clapped a hand to his face and felt the oblivion of unconsciousness creeping over him but the pain kept him awake and he managed to yank open the bedroom door. The hair on his anus was singed and his veins seemed to bulge as his skin contracted. He turned to see his mother, on her hands and knees, crawling towards him, the flesh of her body apparently bubbling, lumps of it falling from calcified bones. She raised an accusing finger at him and screamed:

  “You’re to blame!”

  Also by Shaun Hutson:

  ASSASSIN

  BODY COUNT

  BREEDING GROUND

  CAPTIVES

  COMPULSION

  DEADHEAD

  DEATH DAY

  DYING WORDS

  EPITAPH

  EREBUS

  EXIT WOUNDS

  HEATHEN

  HELL TO PAY

  HYBRID

  KNIFE EDGE

  LAST RITES

  LUCY'S CHILD

  NECESSARY EVIL

  NEMESIS

  PURITY

  RELICS

  RENEGADES

  SHADOWS

  SLUGS

  STOLEN ANGELS

  THE SKULL

  TWISTED SOULS

  UNMARKED GRAVES

  VICTIMS

  WARHOL'S PROPHECY

  WHITE GHOST

  Hammer Novelizations

  TWINS OF EVIL

  X THE UNKNOWN

  THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN

  CAFFEINE NIGHTS PUBLISHING

  SHAUN HUTSON

  Spawn

  Fiction to die for...

  Published by Caffeine Nights Publishing 2013

  Copyright © Shaun Hutson 1983, 2013

  Shaun Hutson has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998 to be identified as the author of this work

  First published in Great Britain in 1983

  by Star Books, a Division of W.H. Allen & Co Plc

  CONDITIONS OF SALE

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, scanning, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher

  This book has been sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental

  Published in Great Britain by Caffeine Nights Publishing

  www.caffeine-nights.com

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-1-907565-47-2

  Cover design by

  Mark (Wills) Williams

  Everything else by

  Default, Luck and Accident

  Spawn

  Introduction by Shaun Hutson

  SPAWN was originally written in 1983 and was my second novel (it was actually the seventh as I'd done five war novels, The Skull for Hamlyn paperbacks and of course Slugs before that) or at least the second one that anyone took any notice of. My publisher and agent at the time insisted that it have a one word title to keep the momentum of Slugs going. The original title was THE CHILDREN OF HELL, this was then cut down to BLOODSPAWN and finally to SPAWN.

  SPAWN was a kind of Frankenstein for the 80's, a story of creatures brought back to life by lightning. I never intended the comparison I just had this vision in my mind of a foetus when the eyes are huge and the head is bulbous and I kept wondering what it would be like if one of these could actually come back to life. That was how the initial premise came about. My novels always started from one central idea or image in my mind and that was the image that started SPAWN.

  I also wanted to write a kind of “whodunit” so other elements quickly came into the plot which you'll discover as you read.

  I never intended to make any comments one way or the other about the rights and wrongs of abortion as some critics have tried to suggest. Anyone who's read my stuff will know that I don't write to send messages or preach, I write to scare the shit out of readers and nothing else. Research was difficult though and I ended up asking a nurse at my local doctors surgery if she could help which she did and I was very grateful for that.

  I was delighted that a number of people wrote to me after SPAWN was first published to tell me they'd had nightmares about it. That's like a mark of quality as far as I'm concerned! After all, if a comedy novel causes laughter that's great and if a sad book makes people cry then that's a success so for a horror novel to scare people has got to be good!

  A couple of scenes were cut because they were thought to be too revolting but I think enough survived to keep me and my readers happy!

  From beginning to end SPAWN was completed in about three months (I wrote fast in those days) and went through very little editing. The biggest problem at the time was the cover artwork. The publishers wouldn't settle until they had a good image containing the creatures of the title. A large publicity campaign was then launched which included bus front advertising in London (I remember nearly being run over by a bus trying to take a picture of the posters as one sped down Oxford Street) and the first of many countrywide tours that I would undertake. In fact, one of the first interviews I ever did was about SPAWN and the interviewer hated it. Fortunately I was fairly immune to criticism even at that age. Just as a point of interest for me more than anything, the first TV interview I ever did was to promote SPAWN. The interview was crap, the interviewers were appalling and I looked like a zombie. So, not much has changed over the years really.

  Not long after it had been published I was in my local W.H. Smith and saw a guy looking through it. Being full of enthusiasm I approached him and said “I'll sign that if you buy it.” He took one look at me, told me to fuck off, put the book back on the shelf and walked out. I learned from that experience that not all types of self promotion are good!

  I've read a couple of scenes from SPAWN since it was written (I never read my books once the manuscript is approved) and one in there is among the best things I think I've ever written (probably a bit worrying as I was only 23 when I did it...). I hope you agree.

  If you're reading it again after a long break then I hope you enjoy it even more this time around and if you're coming to it for the first time then perhaps I should wish you luck....It never was for the faint hearted and hopefully it still packs a punch.

  And if it gives you bad dreams then I'd like to apologise but of course I wouldn't mean it.

  Shaun Hutson 2013.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank Nurse Anne Bozia for her help with the research on this book. If she hadn't answered my questions then I don't think it would ever have been finished. Most of the other people concerned with it have been scattered to the four winds unfortunately and some are no longer with us I'm sad to say including the man who was responsible for its inception, Mr Bob Tanner who sadly died recently and is greatly missed.

  So I will content myself with thanking some people who are still alive.

  My agent, Brie Burkeman, my publishers, Graeme Sayer who somehow still manages to run my websit
e so brilliantly without ever resorting to abusing me in the way I sometimes deserve.

  My mum (who read it first time around and was suitably horrified and disgusted) and of course, my daughter, Kelly who has yet to discover the dubious delights of her Dad's books at the time of writing. She always was a sensible girl!

  I will thank you my readers though, all of you who bought it the first time around and on all its subsequent incarnations and to those of you discovering it (and me) for the first time, welcome. I hope this is the first of many for all of us.

  Shaun Hutson 2013

  This book is dedicated to my Mum. With more love and thanks than I can ever adequately express.

  Part One

  “. . . some of us are born posthumously. . .”

  – Nietzsche

  “. . . the foetus is conscious or aware. It can sense and react not only to emotions such as love and hate, but to more complex and ambiguous feelings.”

  – Dr Thomas Verny

  One

  The flickering wings of the crane-flies inside the jar sounded like whispers in the darkness and Harold Pierce held it to his ear, listening. He smiled and looked at the three insects struggling helplessly inside their glass prison. It was the light that attracted them, he had reasoned, as it did the moths. But Harold wasn’t interested in moths, they moved too quickly. They were too hard to catch but the daddy-long-legs were easy prey. He smiled as he repeated the name. Daddy-long-legs. He stifled a giggle. His mother called them Tommies and that amused him even more. She was sleeping across the narrow hallway now, alone for once. Harold didn’t remember the succession of men who she brought home, he wasn’t really interested either. All he knew was that his father would not be coming back.

  Jack Pierce had been killed at Dunkirk six years earlier and, since then, Harold’s mother had entertained a never-ending series of men. Sometimes Harold had seen them give her money as they left but, it not being in the nature of fourteen-year-olds to question strangers, he had never asked any of them why. One night he had crept across the narrow landing and squinted through the key hole of his mother’s room. She’d had two men in there with her. All of them were laughing and Harold had smelt liquor. They had been naked, all three of them, and for long moments he had watched, puzzled by the strange goings-on before him.

  It was shortly after that night that his mother announced he was to have a brother or sister. The baby had duly arrived and Harold had been dragged off to church for the Christening, puzzled when there was only him and his mother present to witness the ceremony. In fact, his mother was shunned by most of the women in the neighbourhood. They spoke to her in the street but it was never anything more than a cursory ‘hello’.

  Harold held the jar of crane-flies up before him once more, wondering if their whispers would tell him the answers he needed to know.

  He lowered the jar and looked across at the cot which held his baby brother, Gordon. The child was sleeping, lying on its back with the thick flannelette sheet pulled up around its face. Harold hated having to share a room with his brother. In the beginning, it had been all right. Gordon had slept in his cot in his mother’s room but, since his first birthday, he had been put in with Harold. That meant that Harold was forced to come to bed when Gordon was tucked up for the night and that could be as early as seven in the evening. Most of the time, Harold would sit in the bedroom window watching the other kids kicking a big old leather football about in the street below. He had watched them doing that tonight, perched in his customary position until nine o’clock came around and the other kids were called indoors. Then, Harold had switched on his bedside lamp and watched as the crane-flies and moths flittered in through the open window.

  Gordon was sound asleep, little gurgling noises came from his cot as he shifted position occasionally. The nylon eiderdown was crumpled at his feet where he’d kicked it off. It was covered with stitched-on rabbits. Beside the heavy wooden cot stood a pile of yellowing newspapers. Harold didn’t read very well but he knew that the papers were called The News Chronicle. Just why his mother kept them he didn’t know. There was another stack downstairs beside the coal fire, those she used to get the fire started in the mornings. Perhaps the pile in his bedroom were destined for the same purpose.

  He crouched on the end of the bed for long moments, propping the jar of crane-flies on the window sill. The night was still and windless and, from somewhere nearby the strains of “String of Pearls” came drifting in with the night. Harold listened to the distant music for a moment then he swung himself off the bed and padded across to the door. The lino was cold beneath his feet and he hissed softly as he tip-toed from the bedroom, across the hall to the door of his mother’s room. A framed painting of George VI watched him impassively as he gently turned the handle and popped his head round. His mother was asleep, her black hair smeared across her face in untidy patterns. Harold stood there for long seconds, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest, almost coughing as the strong odour of lavender assaulted his nostrils. Finally, satisfied that she wasn’t likely to disturb him, he gently pushed the door closed and tip-toed back to his own room.

  “String of Pearls” had been replaced by “Moonlight Serenade” when he got back but he ignored the music, more intent on the task at hand. He reached beneath his pillow and took out a box of Swan Vestas matches. Harold held them in his sweaty hand for a moment then he took hold of the glass jar. The crane-flies began flapping about even more frenziedly as Harold began to unscrew the top, as if sensing freedom. When it was fully loosened he held the jar before him, eyeing the insect closest to the neck of the jar. With lightning movements, he reached in and grabbed it by one membranous wing, simultaneously pushing the lid back in place.

  The insect tried to escape his grasp and, quickly, Harold pulled both its wings off. He did the same with three of its legs. The unfortunate creature was then dropped onto a sheet of newspaper where it tried, in vain, to scuttle away. Harold watched its helpless writhings for a moment then he picked up the box of Swan Vestas and slid the tray out, taking a match. It flared orange and the smell of sulphur filled his nostrils momentarily. He bent lower, bringing the burning match to within an inch of the crane-fly which immediately began to wriggle more frantically. Harold pressed the tiny flame to one of its legs, watching as the spindly limb seemed to retract, much like hair does when it is burned. The insect rolled onto its back, its two remaining legs thrashing wildly, its tiny head moving frenziedly. Harold burnt off another of its limbs then pressed the spent match-head against its slender abdomen. There was a slight hiss and the creature’s head and remaining leg began moving even more rapidly.

  Harold hurriedly lit another match.

  This one he held right over the crane-fly, giggling when the stumps of its legs moved spasmodically as the flame drew closer. He dropped the match onto the insect, smiling as it was incinerated, its body rapidly consumed by the flame, charred black by the tiny plume of yellow. A whisp of grey smoke rose into the air. When the match had finished burning, Harold took another and prodded the blackened remains of the insect. It merely disintegrated.

  Totally enthralled, Harold stuck his hand inside the jar and took out another of the crane-flies. This one he held by its wings, waving the match beneath it until all its legs had been burnt off. He twisted the wings so it couldn’t fly away then he dropped it onto the newspaper and finished the cremation job with another match.

  For the last insect, Harold had reserved something special. His pièce de résistance. He took a handful of matches from the box and, with infinite care and patience, built them up until they were stacked cross-ways, on top of one another in a kind of well. Into the centre of this well, after removing its wings, he dropped the last insect. Then, quickly, he covered the top with three more matches. There must have been about twenty-five in all comprising that miniature funeral pyre and Harold sat back for a second admiring his handy-work. He could see the crane-fly inside the little stack of matches, its long legs
protruding through the slits here and there as it tried to escape.

  There were half a dozen matches left in the box and Harold struck one, gazing into the flame for a second before carefully applying it to the head of the match at the bottom of the pile.

  It ignited with a hiss, burning for a second then setting off a chain reaction. The little structure went up in a flash of yellow and white flame and Harold grinned broadly.

  He grinned until he saw that his blazing creation had set light to the paper it rested on.

  The newspaper was dry and the flames devoured it hungrily. Harold felt a sudden surge of panic and he snatched up the blazing paper, scattering the burning remains of the tiny pyre as he did so. Matches which still hissed, alive with wisps of yellow, were scattered all over the room. One fell beside the pile of News Chronicles and licked at the edge of the dry papers. Flames began to rise. The room was filled with the smell of charred paper and smoke wafted in the still air.

  Another of the blazing matches fell into Gordon’s cot. It hit the nylon eiderdown and seemed to explode, the quilt suddenly flaring as bright tongues of fire sprang from it.

  Gordon woke up and began to scream as the fire touched his skin.

  For long seconds, Harold was frozen, not knowing what to do. He took a step towards the cot, then backed off, his eyes bulging wide. Gordon’s night-shirt was on fire. The baby was screaming, trying to drag itself away from the all-consuming inferno. Already, the skin on its arms and legs was a vivid scarlet.