by Amy Cross
“The military were all over that place,” she continued. “I know they said it was a terrorist attack, but I don't think terrorists destroyed that hospital, and neither do a lot of people online. I did some digging on a few websites and I found out about this woman named Dominique Ribery, and also this doctor named Andrew Page who was heavily involved in cancer research, he had some really interesting theories that were pretty much ridiculed back in the day, but I think there's a chance they were linked to the -”
Before she could finish, she heard another beep and realized she'd run out of space for the message. Sighing, she put her phone into her pocket and then headed back to the workbench.
Stopping suddenly, she stared at the dead squirrel. She blinked a couple of times, barely able to believe what she was seeing, but finally she realized that the black mass from the squirrel's abdomen had vanished. She'd seen it a moment ago, but now it was gone, and when she looked more closely she could see that the black tendrils were also gone, having seemingly unwrapped themselves from the squirrel's spine.
“What the hell?” she whispered, looking around.
Ducking down, she peered under the desk, and then she began to root through the various pots and other items on the workbench, but to no avail: the black tumor had disappeared without a trace. Taking another look at the squirrel's abdomen, she tried to find any evidence that the tumor had simply deflated or dissolved, but she was convinced something would have been left behind. She knew no-one else had been in the room over the past few minutes, which meant that the situation made no sense.
There was no way the tumor could have left of its own accord.
Hearing a barking sound from the next room, she hurried through and saw that Trotsky, a two-year-old Jack Russell who'd been left overnight for some observation work, was frantic in his cage and had begun to try to gnaw the metal lock.
“Hey,” she said, grabbing a biscuit and slipping it through the bars, “calm down, boy. There's nothing to worry about.”
Ignoring the biscuit, Trotsky continued to chew at the metal.
“You're going to hurt your teeth,” she told him. “Trotsky, seriously, what the hell has gotten into you?”
After trying to encourage him to stop, she checked her watch.
“Listen,” she continued, “I have to pop out and drop some papers off at my brother's place, but I'll be back in an hour, tops. Can you try not to hurt yourself?” She waited for a moment, hoping that the dog would start to settle, before turning and heading back out into her lab. Grabbing her keys and the folder, as well as her coat, she made her way out the back door and locked the surgery before hurrying to her car.
Above, the sky was already getting dark as night approached.
Once she was in her car, she set the folder and her coat on the passenger seat before starting the engine and easing the vehicle out of its parking bay. She took to the main road and then grabbed her phone, bringing up her brother's number yet again and trying to get through, while making sure to keep an eye on the road as it curved up toward the national park at the foot of Mount Everbee.
“Me again,” she said as she was put through to his voice-mail. “I'm coming to your place. You need to see this stuff, Chris. I know I usually mock you for all your crazy conspiracy theories, but something's different this time. Someone leaked some medical files from the Leadenford Hospital incident, and they mentioned an aggressive type of cancer that seems unlike anything I've ever heard of before. The description and sketches strongly match the tumor in that squirrel.”
As she cut the call, she took a left turn, following the sign for Camp Everbee.
On the passenger seat, the edge of her coat began to move a little. Unnoticed by Karen, a thin black tendril flicked out and felt the leather seat, as if it was exploring its new environment. A moment later another tendril emerged, slipping over the first and then dropping down to touch the side of the seat, using its tip to gently press the fabric. As a third tendril appeared, a shape began to shuffle under the edge of the coat, until finally the small black tumor rolled off the side of the seat and landed in the foot-well. A moment later, one of the tendrils reached up and began to examine the side of the driver's seat.
“Great,” Karen muttered as a few drops of rain began to fall on her windshield. Switching on the car's headlights, she looked up at the dark clouds that were now gathering over the mountain, threatening rain well into the night.
Hitting the button on the radio, she tried to tune into a rock channel, but there was far too much static, as if the bad weather was starting to affect the signal.
“Come on,” she sighed, keeping her eyes on the road despite her attempts to tune the radio. Giving up, she reached down and grabbed the first CD she could find, before slipping it unseen into the player.
She waited, hoping against hope that she'd managed to pick something good, and finally she heard the beginning of a Gourds song.
“That'll do,” she muttered, before reaching down with one hand and scratching a sudden itch just above the waist of her jeans.
Barely an inch away, two black tendrils were reaching up and taking hold of the seat's side, before two more tendrils rose and joined them.
“Oh God,” Karen said out loud as more rain began to fall. She was on a side-road now, well away from civilization, taking a route that passed around the base of the mountain. On one side of the road, vast green fields spread up into the distance, while on the other side there was a precipitous drop into the valley.
Reaching for her phone again, she figured she might as well try her brother one more time. Not noticing that a thin, slimy black tendril was now wrapped around the side of the device, and keeping her eyes fixed firmly on the road, she hit the button to retry the last call and placed the phone on the side of her face, with the tendril just a couple of millimeters from her flesh.
“Still nothing?” she sighed as she went straight through to voice-mail. She glanced at her reflection in the windshield. “For God's sake, what am I -”
Suddenly she saw something moving behind her: a small black shape was rising over her shoulder, spilling several black tendrils down onto her neck and arm.
“What the -”
Before she could finish, the black shape dropped onto her neck and she screamed as she felt tiny spikes digging into her flesh. Letting go of the wheel, she reached up to pull the creature away, but she was too late to prevent the tips of two tendrils digging into her neck and slipping several inches beneath her flesh. As the road ahead curved sharply to the left, she grabbed the wheel and managed to turn the car just in time to keep from flying off the edge and down into the valley, but the tires squealed and she had to turn again to navigate the tight s-bend as she felt several more thing tendrils burrowing deep into her skin and wrapping around the top of her spine.
Gasping for breath, she fumbled for her phone, but in the process she knocked it away. She tried to take her foot off the accelerator, so she could slow the car, but as more tendrils wrapped around her spine she found that she was struggling to control her body, and all she could manage was to desperately turn the wheel as she arrived at the next corner. Barely making the left-hand turn, she found herself on a straight stretch and reached up to grab the black tumor on the side of her neck. Despite the tendril tips that were poking at her fingers, she began to pull on the tumor, desperate to get it free, but the creature had attached itself firmly to her flesh and she let out a cry of pain as she felt one of the tendrils slipping down through her body and into her chest, tapping twice on the side of her heart.
Up ahead, the road curved to the left.
She tried to turn the wheel, but her arms suddenly felt slow and heavy and no matter how hard she pushed, all she could do was watch as the curve arrived and the car shot off the side of the road, flying several meters through the air before clipping the side of a tree and flipping. Screaming, she braced herself as the vehicle came slamming down onto its roof and then rolled down the steep hill, tur
ning over and over again until it slammed into a tree stump and came to a rest on one side, with steam already rising from the engine.
In the driver's seat, Karen struggled to open her eyes as blood flowed from a wound on the side of her head. She blinked a couple of times, staring ahead at the smashed windshield, and although she could feel herself slipping into unconsciousness, she tried to fight back, even as she felt a curious tightening sensation in her neck. A moment later, she felt a thin, sharp tendril poking its way up into the base of her skull until it reached her brain, and finally she began to scream.
Chapter Twelve
“- coming in from the south tonight,” the weather reporter continued as his voice blasted out of the speakers, “and hitting the area by midnight. And with that, there's going to come a significant band of rain, so a travel warning is likely to be in place from around that point onwards. In other words, there's a hell of a storm coming.”
“Great,” Freeman muttered as he hauled a large piece of tarpaulin off the back of his truck and dragged it across the forest floor, making for the large yellow bags of hospital waste. His car headlights were shining bright, allowing him to see the way. “A perfect storm of apocalyptic weather and unspecified chemicals. Just what the doctor ordered.”
“Heading through to morning,” the reporter continued, “watch for flash floods in the valleys, and there might even be some thunder and lightning for inland areas, as far east as Mount Everbee. All told, we're looking at a significant weather event and, as ever, we strongly advise people to stay indoors unless they absolutely have to travel. The roads could get treacherous out there, especially in the more remote areas.”
“Thanks for that,” Freeman said bitterly. “I'll keep it in mind.”
As he spoke, a few more drops of rain began to fall on the back of his neck. Pulling the tarpaulin up to the first of the yellow sacks of waste, he paused for a moment and peered inside: barely able to see a thing, he was just about able to make out a transparent plastic bag that seemed to contain a bundle of used syringes, along with bloodied bandages and several brown-stained sheets. There were also a few brown bottles, containing what appeared to be tissue samples. Sighing, he began to lift the tarpaulin over the top and then he screwed several large metal pegs into the ground, hoping against hope that they'd be enough to keep the sacks from filling with rainwater and then leaking their contents through the soil.
“Out of sight, out of mind,” he muttered.
He glanced up at the sky just in time to see the moon disappearing behind a thick bank of black clouds. Night was closing in fast, bringing the storm in its wake.
Once the first tarpaulin was in place, he pulled his phone from his pocket and waved it up in the air for a few seconds, trying to get some signal. Finally achieving a connection, he waited until the phone lit up with a notification: two voice messages from his sister Karen. He brought up the first message and listened:
“Me again. I'm coming to your place. You need to see this stuff, Chris. I know I usually mock you for all your crazy conspiracy theories, but something's different this time. Someone leaked some medical files from the Leadenford Hospital incident, and they mentioned an aggressive type of cancer that seems unlike anything I've ever heard of before. The description and sketches strongly match the tumor in that squirrel.”
Tapping the screen for the other message, he listened again:
“For God's sake, what am I -”
At that point, the second call was cut off.
“Huh,” he muttered, bringing up her number and trying to call her back, only to find that this time it was his turn to be put straight through to voice-mail. “Hey,” he said, “it's me. When exactly are you coming to my place? I'm gonna be out for a few more hours fixing things up ahead of this storm, but I'll be back later. You'd better have some beer with you, Sis, 'cause I'm out and I won't get to the store in time.” Cutting the call, he slipped his phone into his pocket and got back to work, strapping several more sections of tarpaulin over the yellow Leadenford waste sacks, until finally he finished the last bag and took a step back to admire his achievement.
The rain was falling more steadily now, and shallow puddles were already starting to form on the tarpaulin.
“Okay,” Freeman muttered, turning to head back toward his truck, “now for the -”
Stopping suddenly, he spotted the silhouette of a deer standing in front of his headlights.
“What the hell are you doing out in this weather?” Freeman whispered, before heading toward the truck and waving his arms in the air. “Go on! Get out of here!” He stopped as he got closer, surprised by the fact that such a skittish creature hadn't bolted already. “You shouldn't be out here,” he continued. “The weather's only gonna get worse.”
As the animal turned and took a couple of faltering steps toward the truck, something seemed strange about its body, as if it was barely able to walk properly. Although Freeman was used to finding injured animals in the forest, he couldn't help noticing that this particular deer seemed strangely determined to get closer to the truck, to the extent that it didn't seem at all concerned about having a human nearby.
“Hey!” he called out, making his way around the deer and taking care not to get too close. “What's up with you, Bambi?”
Stopping, the deer kept its unblinking eyes focused on the truck.
“Are you hurt?” Freeman asked, stopping once he was just a few feet from the animal. “Buddy? Are you injured?”
The deer stood for a moment, swaying slightly, before suddenly turning to face Freeman and allowing him to see that one side of its head had been partially eaten away, exposing raw red meat and bone under the torn fur. One of its eyeballs was partially extruding from the socket, with the skull all around the area having been crushed.
“Hell,” Freeman muttered, “that's nasty.”
Making his way around the deer, but still making sure to keep a good distance, he finally saw that the damage wasn't limited to the deer's head: there was a thick, open wound on its belly, with dried blood in the matted fur.
“What happened to you?” Freeman asked, taking a step closer. “Looks like you've been beaten up and -”
He stopped as the deer opened its mouth and let out a faint rasping sound.
“Damn it,” Freeman muttered with a sigh, “listen, buddy, I'm sorry but...” He paused for a moment, watching as blood dripped from one of the wounds on the animal's flank. “I think you might be too far gone,” he continued. “My sister's a vet, but I doubt she can do anything for you.” Heading over to his truck, he pulled a sheet off the back and grabbed his hunting rifle. After loading a couple of cartridges and slipping a few more into his pocket, he turned to see that the deer was watching him intently. “This is for the best,” he explained. “Believe me, I don't like it, but you must be in a lot of pain, my friend, and it's not gonna get any better.”
Making his way toward the deer, he aimed the rifle at the animal's head.
“The world is a cruel -”
Stopping suddenly, he realized that something seemed to be moving in the deer's side, as if a hidden mass was churning through its belly. With his finger on the trigger, Freeman watched as the mass seemed to shift again, almost as if it was reaching up around the deer's ribcage and starting to ripple into the side of its neck. Lowering the rifle a little, he looked at the deer's eyes and saw that they were staring unblinkingly back at him.
Without any warning, the animal took a faltering step closer.
Instinctively, Freeman stepped back.
Opening its mouth, the deer let out another faint hiss.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Freeman whispered, stepping around to get a better look at the animal's side.
With the deer remaining in place and not even looking at him, he kept the gun raised as he made his way closer, until finally he reached out and placed a hand on the animal's flank. He could feel something moving beneath the skin, and after a moment he realized that
instead of just one mass, there seemed to be several long, thin objects under there, squirming against one another. Keeping his hand on the fur, he peered closer at the bloody wound on the animal's side, and finally he realized that somewhere in the mix of fur and glistening blood, something long and thin and dark seemed to be poking out.
He watched in horror as a sharp black tendril began to slip out, glistening in the darkness and curling at its tip, as if it was trying to make sense of the world for the first time.
A shiver passed through Freeman's chest as he pulled his hand back.
The tendril continued to slip out through the wound until it was several inches extended, and its tip was constantly flicking and twitching. After a moment, the tip swung through the air and pointed straight at Freeman's face, and although he moved back, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching him. Just as he was about to pull back further, he noticed another tendril slipping out through the same wound, followed by a third.
Taking a couple more steps back, he lowered the rifle and reached into his pocket. Taking out his phone, he brought up his sister's number and tried again to call her, only to find that he'd lost signal. Opening the video app, he started to film the deer for a moment, capturing shots of the tendrils as they flailed in the air. A moment later, he saw that the skin on the side of the deer's face was starting to bulge, and he aimed the camera just in time to see the tip of another black tendril starting to poke out through the side of the animal's eye. Switching the camera to night-mode, he was able to get a better view as the tendril began to push the eye aside and emerged quivering into the world.
“Oh, hell no,” Freeman whispered, taking a step back.
Slowly, the deer turned to face him again.