by Amy Cross
***
“Tea, coffee and biscuits,” Laura muttered to herself as she took a step back, admiring the items she'd laid out on a table in the cabin. “If I don't say so myself, I think I make a pretty good -”
“Help me!” a female voice screamed outside. “Somebody help me!”
Racing to the door and pulling it open, Laura looked out just in time to see a silhouette hobbling across the grass, waving desperately at the cabins. Making her way out into the rain, Laura ran over to meet the figure, only for Kirsty to run straight into her, almost knocking them both down.
“Help me!” Kirsty shouted breathlessly, grabbing onto Laura's shoulders. “For the love of God, you have to help me!” Turning, she looked back the way she'd come for a moment with wild, staring eyes. “I think there are more of them. I heard something following me through the forest, like it was chasing me or... hunting me...”
“What was chasing you?” Laura asked, looked down at Kirsty's body and seeing that something seemed to be wrong with her right foot. “Are you okay?”
“We have to get out of here!” Kirsty continued, pushing past and limping toward the cabins. She began banging on all the doors. “Wake up!” she shouted .”There's something in the lake! It's in the forest, it's coming this way! We all have to get out of Camp Everbee right now!”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Laura asked, limping after her.
“We have to call the police,” Kirsty continued, making her way into their cabin. “Where is everyone?”
“They're out doing some kinda job with a bunch of sacks,” Laura replied, following her inside. “Listen, you -” Stopping, she saw to her horror that the skin on Kirsty's right foot had been completely pulled away, leaving nothing behind except de-gloved muscle and bone. “You ran back here from the lake?” she asked. “On that? Seriously, what happened to you?”
“It was in the water,” Kirsty stammered, barely able to speak as fear gripped her soul. “I didn't see it, but it reached up for me and it almost dragged me in. I had to -” Looking down at her foot, she stared for a moment before screaming.
“Hey!” Laura said, hurrying over and putting an arm around her shoulder. “It's okay. You're going to be fine, just sit down for a moment.” Helping her to one of the beds, she eased her down. “I'm the only one here right now,” she explained, “but the others are going to be back soon. Real soon, I swear!”
“Are they in the woods?” Kirsty asked.
“Yeah, but -”
“You have to get them out of there! It's not safe!”
“What happened to you?”
“There's something in the lake,” Kirsty continued, as tears rolled down her cheeks. “Whatever it is, it's in the forest too. It's everywhere! We have to get out of here!” Letting out a gasp of pain, she looked down at her ravaged foot and saw that she'd left bloody footprints across the cabin's wooden floor. “It feels numb,” she whispered. “I don't want to lose my foot. I can't ever be an air stewardess if I only have one foot!” She turned to Laura. “Where's Todd?”
“I have no idea!”
“Didn't he come back?”
“How the fuck would I know?” Laura asked. “Beth came back, though, and she's seriously freaky. There's something wrong with that girl.”
“Please,” Kirsty whimpered, “we have to get out of here. We have to wake everyone up and make them leave now!” Grabbing her phone, she unlocked the main screen. “No signal.”
“No-one's got signal up here,” Laura reminded her. “We're in the shadow of a mountain, remember?”
“There has to be a land-line,” Kirsty replied. “You have to get help! You have to call someone!”
“I don't think anyone's here right now,” Laura continued. “I just got back from the main building and it's all deserted. Everyone's in the forest.”
“Then they're in danger,” Kirsty replied, turning to look toward the door. “They might even be dead by now. Those things are out there.”
“Relax,” Laura replied, trying not to panic. “I'm sure they're all fine.”
***
“Run!” shouted one of the other campers, before dropping to his knees with tendrils flailing across his shoulders. Falling forward, he let out one final gasp as the creature's spherical main body attached itself to the back of his neck and began to drain him; as it did so, the creature began to noticeably increase in size with every drop of blood.
All around, terrified campers were running through the darkness, trying to get away from the scores of creatures that had come squirming out of the yellow sacks. With no way of seeing which way they were going, some of the campers collided with one another and some ran straight into trees, while others stumbled over the bodies of their fallen comrades. Screams filled the air as rain continued to drive down, and a strong wind blew between the trees.
“Isn't it beautiful?” Beth said, grinning serenely as she listened to the cries ringing through the forest. “That's the sound of the natural world reasserting itself.”
“You've got to be kidding,” Lizzie whispered, taking a step back as she watched the silhouette of a girl drop to the ground with two creatures attached to her. After a moment, the creatures seemed to start fighting over the corpse, their tendrils flailing wildly at one another.
“My brothers and sisters were scared,” Beth replied, turning to her. “Only a few of us were brave enough to crawl out of the sacks and explore. I was lucky, I found this body stumbling alone through the forest and in a moment of opportunism I took it. I don't know what happened to the other flesh pioneers, but I'm sure they're around somewhere. I'll find out when I link back up to the race memory.”
“So this is a reality TV show, right?” Lizzie continued, looking around as she saw the silhouettes of other terrified campers racing into the distance. “It's a Channel 4 thing. Definitely feels like something Channel 4 would do.” She turned back to Beth. “Is it some kind of social experiment? Are they, like, testing us to see how we react to pressure? Are we going to start getting voted out?”
“It's justice,” Beth replied. “For years, our species has been growing inside your own, but you used chemicals and radiation to try to hold us back. Humanity launched a holocaust against us, killing billions of our species as we fought to emerge from your bodies. Fortunately, by doing so you were only making us stronger. Over time, we learned to withstand your attacks.”
“Stop it!” Lizzie shouted, taking another step back. “Beth, just stop, okay? Talk to me like a normal human being for once!”
“Beth's gone,” she replied. “At first I pushed her to the side of her mind, but then I was able to transfer the remains of her soul into a mass of flesh that I ejected into one of those portable bathrooms. I think you were outside at the time.”
“You're sick,” Lizzie continued. “I'm not falling for this. You might think you can entertain people at home by hooking up hidden cameras and terrifying a bunch of kids with cancer, but I'm not going to go screaming through the forest for your pleasure.”
“Good,” Beth replied, stepping toward her. “That means I won't have to chase you.”
“But if you -”
Before she could finish, Lizzie saw to her horror that a thick black tendril was poking out from the side of Beth's neck, and a moment later another emerged from her chest. The two tendrils snaked in the air for a moment, their tips flicking in the rain and wind.
“Like the deer,” Lizzie whispered, taking another step back. “Those are some neat special effects, but...”
“I'm so glad you're going to let me feed without putting up a fight,” Beth continued, edging closer. “Sometimes, I feel as if I expend more energy chasing my food than I actually gain from the meal. Thanks to you, though, I should be nice and plump by morning. We'll all need to be strong for the next stage of our journey. Once we get away from this mountain, that's when our task will really begin. We must get in touch with other groups, I can already sense some coming this way, and then we
have a whole world to free from human tyranny.”
Glancing over at a nearby tree, Lizzie watched for a moment as one of the creatures fed on the back of a downed girl. With each intake of blood, the black tumor on the girl's back could be seen getting a little bigger. Before she could say anything, however, Lizzie felt the tip of one of Beth's tendrils brushing against her face, and she scrambled back to get out of the way.
“This is how things should be,” Beth told her. “When a strong new species emerges, it wipes away its predecessors. This evolution at its finest.”
“It's a trick,” Lizzie said firmly, forcing herself to stand her ground as Beth edged closer. “I'm on TV. There's no way this is really happening!”
Beth smiled as a third tendril poked out through her shoulder and began to reach toward Lizzie through the rain.
“Just a trick,” Lizzie muttered, shaking with fear. “I'm not going to be fooled.”
“I bet you taste good,” Beth said, with a grin that exposed another tendril emerging from her mouth. “Much better than all those squirrels.”
“Fuck!” Lizzie shouted finally, turning and racing through the dark forest. She had no idea which way she was going, but she began to run uphill, figuring that eventually she'd get to the edge of the treeline and that being near the cabins would be better than being down by the lake. She had no idea if Beth was close behind, but she didn't have time to check as she darted between the trees, almost running head-first into several of them until suddenly she emerged, breathless and shivering, at the edge of a large field.
Barely able to see a thing, she stopped for a moment and squinted, and finally she was able to make out not only the silhouettes of several other campers running into the distance, but also the roofs of the cabins.
“Hey!” she screamed, running forward. “Wait for me!”
Racing through the rain, she stumbled several times but managed to catch up to the dozen or so other campers just as they reached the cabins. Chaos reigned, with terrified voices ringing out as people rushed into the cabins and bolted the doors shut. Almost knocked down in the panic, Lizzie made her way over to her cabin and then hurried through the door, immediately turning and bolting it shut. Terrified and barely able to believe what was happening, she took a step back, listening to the sound of the rain outside mixed with panicked screams coming from the other cabins nearby.
“What the fuck?” Laura asked suddenly.
Turning, Lizzie saw to her shock that Laura was kneeling by one of the beds, applying some kind of bandage to a horrific-looking wound on Kirsty's foot.
“Did you see them?” Kirsty asked, her face white with fear. “You saw them, didn't you?”
“The blobs?” Lizzie replied.
Kirsty nodded.
“The little black blobby things,” Lizzie continued, holding her hands up to indicate a flattened sphere, “with lots of black tentacles running out of them.”
Again Kirsty nodded, as tears ran down her cheeks.
“Yeah,” Lizzie replied, “I saw them. Everyone saw them. They're in the forest and...” She paused, spotting a section of bone poking out of Kirsty's foot. “What happened to you?”
“They're in the water,” Kirsty told her. “The same water where we went swimming, they're in there and they attacked me, I almost didn't get away. Have you seen Dean?”
Lizzie shook her head.
“Oh fuck,” Kirsty continued, closing her eyes for a moment. “Oh fuck oh fuck oh – Crap!” she yelled suddenly, pulling her foot away from Laura.
“It's a disinfectant,” Laura replied, grabbing the good part of Kirsty's right leg and pulling it closer. “You might end up with an infection if I don't put this stuff on.”
“I think I want to believe in God now,” Kirsty said, turning to Lizzie. “Yeah, I definitely want to believe in God. Do you know any prayers?”
“Sorry, no.”
“Our father,” Kirsty continued, looking up at the ceiling, “who art in... Something... something else... Damn it, why didn't I listen at school?”
“Fuck,” Lizzie whispered, heading to the window and peering out through the rain-spattered glass. For a moment she was unable to see anything in the darkness, but finally she was able to make out another face looking out from the opposite cabin; she briefly made eye contact with a terrified-looking girl, but when she turned to look along the path that ran between the cabins, Lizzie realized that she couldn't see anyone else out there.
“What's going on?” Laura asked after a moment.
“People died,” Lizzie whispered. “I don't know how many, maybe... half?”
“You're kidding, right?”
“I have to see,” Lizzie continued, heading over to the door and reaching up to the bolt.
“Don't let them in,” Kirsty snapped.
“I won't!”
“Keep the door locked!”
“I just need to see,” Lizzie replied, sliding the bolt across. “We need to know if they're out there. We need to know what we're dealing with.” Grabbing the handle, she paused for a moment before slowly easing the door open and looking out into the rain.
There was no sign of anyone nearby.
With rain still falling hard, she stepped outside and shut the door again. Looking at the other cabins, she saw terrified faces peering out through several of the windows, but although she knew that hiding would be safer, she figured she had to know what was happening. Making her way across the grass, she kept looking in every direction, terrified in case something moved in the shadows. By the time she reached the last cabin, her heart was pounding and she felt as if she was about to be attacked at any moment. Looking out toward the treeline, she squinted and tried to see if anything was moving in the darkness.
She held her breath.
Just as she began to feel relief that there was nothing out there, she realized she could see a hint of movement. A moment later, she felt her blood start to run cold as she realized a human figure was walking out of the forest, followed a few seconds later by another, with the latter stumbling and barely able to remain upright. Seconds after that, two more figures appeared, and together they began to walk slowly and awkwardly toward the cabins.
Taking a step forward, Lizzie watched in horror for a moment. She could tell from the silhouette that the first figure was Beth, but the others seemed to be barely able to keep going. Finally, she saw that several others were also emerging from the forest, and although she didn't want to believe the worst, she felt a cold shiver pass through her body as she realized that the gait of the figures was wrong somehow, as if they were struggling to control their bodies.
“No,” Lizzie whispered, “please, no...”
“Oh my God!” Crystal shouted, suddenly lunging at Lizzie from the shadows and pinning her against the side of the cabin. “What's happening?”
“Did you see them?” Lizzie asked.
“I dropped my torch! I saw... something!”
Lizzie turned and looked toward the trees, and she saw that the figures were slowly getting closer.
“What are they?” Crystal asked, with fear in her voice.
“I have no idea,” Lizzie replied, unable to stop watching the approaching figures, “but I don't think we should go near them.”
“Lizzie!” a voice called out suddenly.
Looking back over at one of the cabins, Lizzie saw that Laura had cautiously opened the door.
“I've got to get out of here!” Crystal shouted, racing over to the cabin and pushing Laura out of the way before hurrying inside and slamming the door.
“Hey!” Lizzie called out, running to the door and trying to get it open, only to hear the bolt sliding across. “Let me in!”
“You might be infected!” Crystal shouted at her through the door. “We can't let you in if you're infected!”
“Bullshit!” Lizzie replied. “What the hell are you talking about? Let me into the goddamn cabin!”
“We can't risk charity,” Crystal replied. “T
here's no room in here for anyone else.”
“Let her in!” Laura shouted from inside the cabin.
“I'm in charge here!” Crystal told her.
“Hey!” Lizzie yelled, banging on the door again. “You can't leave me out here!” Looking over her shoulder, she saw that the advancing figures had almost reached the first cabin.
“Lizzie!” Beth called out through the rain. “Don't be scared! This is how the world works!”
Staring at her, Lizzie suddenly realized that she could see something glistening in the grass. Looking down, she saw that as well as the handful of figures stumbling toward the cabins, several of the black creatures were writhing through the grass.
“Oh God,” she whispered, backing against the door. “No no no...” Glancing at the cabin opposite, she saw that another girl was staring out, watching what was happening but making no move to help.
“Everything's going to be wonderful,” Beth continued as she got closer. “The strong replace the weak. It's funny, humans never had a problem with that idea before. Your species dominated the planet, but that was unnatural. The order is being redressed.”
Looking down, Lizzie saw that one of the creatures had already reached the steps leading to the cabin, and a long black tendril was reaching up toward her.
“No!” she shouted, stamping on the tendril and crushing it into the wood.
“Stop that!” Beth called out. “Don't you dare hurt us!”
A moment later, Lizzie heard the bolt being slid back across, and Laura opened the door.
“Get in!”
Hurrying inside, Lizzie turned to watch as Laura bolted the door again.
“Give us this day our daily bread,” Kirsty was whimpering on the bed, with her eyes tight shut, “and, er, forgive us when we trespass...”
“Are you insane?” Lizzie shouted, turning to Crystal.
“What are those things?”
“They're goddamn monsters,” Lizzie yelled, stepping toward her, “and you were going to leave me out there to get killed!”
“Hey,” Laura said, stepping between them, “there's no need to fight! Crystal, you're a total bitch and you're lucky we don't throw you out there right now so they can chew on your bones as a distraction.”