by Ian Woodhead
Several more vines had broken off the pod and were now crawling up the side of the bookstall. They anchored themselves onto the wood then the tips bifurcated and began to grow away, heading towards a flower-stall on the other side of the walkway. “Tell me what is happening, Jenny!” he growled. “You've obviously seen this happen before.”
The woman shook her head. “I'm sorry,” she whispered. “I can't. They are dead now, there's no way we can help them. Please, let's go before it really is too late!”
Her words hit him like a sledgehammer! There were people in there and that thing was doing everything it could to get at them! “And I fucking activated it,” he moaned. “This is all my fault.” Jordan shrugged off her grip and raced back to the stall, ignoring the woman's panicked cries to come back. What the fuck was wrong with her? He couldn't leave people in there to suffer whatever fate that plantlike thing had for them. No way, it just wasn't right!
“Please, get back here!”
Jordan stopped dead, about a metre from one of the stalls when an agonised shriek blasted out of the bookstall. The noise chilled his blood and made his bladder want to release its contents. More than anything, it made Jordan want to spin around, run back to Jenny and to get as far away from here as quickly as possible. It didn't stop either. The screaming went on and on. Jordan looked at the flower-stall and then over his shoulder and Jenny who was now sat on the floor, rocking back and forwards.
He clenched his hands into fists and covered the last few steps towards the flower-stall in less than a second. Jordan bashed his fists as hard as he could against the door. “You need to get out of there right now!” he yelled. “Don't worry, it's safe out here, there's no dead things.” He glanced up and saw the growing vines had almost covered the gap between the two stalls. In the seconds since he last saw them, the thing had almost tripled in size.
Jordan smashed his fist against the wood again. Was there really anybody in there? The shrieking coming from the bookstall suddenly cut out, leaving a ringing in his ears. He leaned his body against the door and hoped that whatever agony those vines had inflicted on that unfortunate person hiding in that stall was over with and their soul could now rest in peace. Jordan pressed his ear against the door.
There was somebody in there, he could hear them moving about! Jordan stepped back, he was about to hit the wood again when he heard the sound of a lock clicking. At last! It took him a moment to realise that it wasn't the lock from the flower-stall!
He turned his head, while listening to his heart speed up. Above his head, the vines continued to grow, they had now reached the top of the door and unlike him, had no trouble in gaining access. Two of them had already pushed through the narrow gap between the door and the frame.
The door slowly opened. Jordan watched the bookstall, his mouth as dry as desert sand, unable to move his body despite being aware that two of those vines had split from the main column and were growing towards his head.
A middle-aged man, wearing a chequered waistcoat and pale jeans, burst out from inside the bookstall. He staggered three paces then fell to his knees. Apart from a few cuts on his cheeks, he looked in good shape. The man certainly wasn't dead, that's for sure! Jordan moved away from the door, noticing that the vines close to his head were starting to shrink away. Even the ones which had slid through the gap above the door were retreating towards the main column.
“Hello, are you alright?” he called to the man. “Do you need any assistance?” The man looked like he hadn't heard. He continued to stare at the floor. The only visible movement came from those vines which continued to retreat. Most of them had already shrunk back into the huge pod. Jordan noticed that it started to change its colour to match its surroundings. The last of the vines vanished inside and the rent across its top sealed up.
He shifted his attention away from the unexplainable object when the other man slowly turned his head. He got back onto his feet, while continuing to gaze at Jordan. “Do you want me to get help?” he spun around, moved away from the door to the flower-stall and tried to locate Jenny. Where the hell had she got to? “Don't you worry, my friend will be able to sort out those cuts on your face. Jenny is pretty good with first aid.”
There was no sign of her anywhere! Had she really left him? It sure looked that way. Jordan couldn't see her anywhere. Jordan glanced back at the other man. “Well, she was here a minute ago. I think she…” He shut his mouth when he saw the man obviously wasn't as fine as he first suspected.
It was clear that the bookseller wasn't looking at Jordan, as his gaze hadn't moved from the door to the flower-stall. The man wobbled back and forth then slid his left foot forward a couple of inches. “Do you need any help?” Jordan edged a little closer to the man then stopped dead when he spotted something move under the man's waistcoat.
“What the fuck was that?” The man moved his other foot forward then stopped as if to regain his balance. To Jordan's eyes, it looked like the man was learning how to walk.
Jordan was beginning to think that he should have listened to Jenny in the first place. Something was seriously wrong with this whole situation. Where the hell had she gone? Had the woman really left him inside the mall?
It looked like the other man was now getting the hang of walking. He had started to move with a little more confidence. As the man moved, so did whatever was under his waistcoat and Jordan now saw that this unnatural movement had spread down beneath both his trouser legs all the way to his ankles. The man reached the door, he placed both hands against the wood, spread his fingers out and pressed in.
“What are you doing?”
The man didn't respond, he simply continued to press his palms against the wood. The stench returned, worse than before. It took Jordan a second to work out that smell was drifting off the man and not the pod. In fact, the pod had now drastically reduced in size. The thing wasn't that much larger than a melon.
“Don't fucking ignore me. I asked you a question,” he growled. The man finally shifted his avid attention from the door. His head rotated away from the stall, continuing to swivel until he faced Jordan. “No, no way,” he spluttered. That's not even possible. “What the fuck are you, part owl?”
The rustling under the man's clothing grew more violent. Both his waistcoat and trousers began to strain as whatever lay under the material pushed against it. Jordan couldn't take any more of this weirdness. He thought his head was going to burst. As he slowly backed away from the man, those hands literally pushed through the wood, like the stuff was made from sponge. The screaming started up but it didn't come from the man or the inside of the book-stall. It now came from inside the flower-stall!
The man's fingers gripped the edges and tore the wood off, making the hole even larger.
Oh no, there really was someone hiding in there! Jordan didn't know what to do. That thing clearly wasn't human anymore. He couldn't leave whoever was still inside though, he just couldn't! Jordan took three paces closer. “Get away from there!” he shouted.
For his efforts, the other man-thing opened his own mouth. His jaw continued stretching until it reached his chest. At that point, Jordan knew he had to get the hell out of there but by the time he managed to get his leg muscles to respond, it was too late. The man's clothes shredded when the stuff underneath burst out.
Dozens of pale cream tendrils, covered in watery blood and tiny bits of flesh, whipped around his ankles and pulled him onto the floor then started to drag him closer to the man-thing. Jordan screamed out and struggled like mad while trying to pull the thin tendrils off his legs but the stuff was wedged tight.
The man-thing wasn't even looking at him anymore. It continued to rip off the wood, obviously only caring about reaching its next victim. The distance between him and the monster continued to decrease and the closer he got, the tighter the vines became. He felt himself beginning to black out due to the pain. When Jordan saw what awaited him, perhaps losing conciousness was a good thing.
The tattered re
mains of the man's skin had already fallen away, to reveal to tight network of flexible pipes of various width, coiled around each other and his spinal column but the spine had detached from the hip bone and in the space where his backside used to be was a swirling vortex of hundreds of hooked needle thin teeth and that is exactly where the vine were taking him.
He managed to flip himself onto his front. The only chance left for him was to see if he could grab the metal chair bolted to the stall he'd just been dragged past. Jordan's fingers scrabbled for the cold metal and after two attempts he was able to curl the tips of his fingers around the thin leg and he hung on for his life while those tendrils never once relinquished their prize catch.
He howled as the pain grew more intense, vaguely aware that his skin around his ankles had already torn in several places. In his mind’s eye, Jordan believed his skin had slipped down his ankle like a bloodied sock.
The faint hope that perhaps his blood would make everything too slippery for the tendrils to keep hold vanished when his body lifted a couple of inches off the floor.
His fingers started the slip, there was no way he'd be able to keep hold of the chair leg for much longer. Everything was going grey. Maybe he should let go already. Why delay the inevitable? Jordan let go of the chair and the same time the pressure around his ankles vanished.
Jordan slammed his hands on the floor, saving his nose from damage, then rolled onto his back. The man-thing must have decided not to consume him after all. He had no idea why, nor did he care. Jordan craved just one thing right now and that was to crawl away from this place and sleep for a week.
“Oh God. You really do look like shit. Here, let me get you up.”
He recognised that voice. The market roof tilted backwards as he moved forwards. The concerned face of the woman who previously told him they were going to share a bath together, helped Jordan up into a sitting position. Fat chance of him having a bath now, not for a while. Oh Christ, look at his ankles, those vines had mangled his flesh! He looked like he'd been paddling in tomato soup!
“We need to see if you can stand up. It'll be preoccupied for another few minutes but after that, the bastard will come back for you. That much I can guarantee.”
She waved a lawn trimming tool in front of him, she must have used that to cut through the vines. Clever girl.
“This won't stop it. Now, are you ready? This is going to hurt.”
The woman moved out of his vision and Jordan now discovered why everything had gone so quiet and why he was still alive. The man-thing had broken through the door, entered that flower-stall and already immobilised the woman hiding in there. She lay on the floor in amongst the crushed remains of her stock, with the man-thing sitting on her hips.
Its hands were spread over her breasts, while those vines, which had previously threatened to pull Jordan into that gaping maw, had regrown and were now in the process of winding around her still body. It was difficult to work out where the vines started and the woman's crushed flowers ended.
“Okay, let's do this,” said Jenny. “Are you ready for more pain?”
He nodded, despite not being ready at all. The woman gave him the lawn edging tool.
“Use this to help you get up.”
She then put his other arm around her shoulder and held his hand tight. When Jenny slowly stood up, Jordan's view shifted once more and he finally saw the woman's face. It was his mother.
Chapter Nine
“Oh, God. Mum!”
The blanket fell onto his knees when Jordan sat bolt upright. He stifled a gasp and threw himself back down. What the hell was he thinking of? It's almost like he wanted those dead things to smash through the car windows, drag him out onto the pavement and eat his fucking face!
Okay, so Necrovoid, being the bitch that it was, showed him some weird plant-thing monster 'changing' her into God knows what the manic sexually-repressed software designers cooked up. Like he hadn't already seen her devolved already? Jordan slowly pulled the blanket back up to his chin and silently counted to ten.
By the time he reached five, the idea that the dead things might not be dragging him outside began to form. The optimism gained more weight when Jordan hit the magic ten. He gave it another ten count, just to be sure before rolling onto his front and peering over the edge of the glass.
The only movement he saw were the ornamental trees, planted along the edge of the path on the other side of the street. Their top branches swayed with the wind. Nothing else moved. The dead things had either wandered off, in search of more food, or they were hiding. Jordan then remembered how the dead in Necrovoid hid under the cars and his traitorous imagination showed him the image of two pairs of hands ripping away this vehicle's undercarriage while he lay on the seat above, his bulging eyes unable to tear away from the spectacle of their fingers inching closer and closer to his tender flesh.
“Christ on a bike,” he whispered. “What is wrong with you?” Jordan took a deep breath then sit up again. As far as he was concerned, that mind of his could go fuck itself. He might not be able to live without it but he could, on occasion, blank the fucking thing. Jordan even slapped the floor, just to prove that nothing had slid under the car.
He climbed onto the back seat while searching for movement out of the opposite window. Aside from a couple of starlings pecking at an old bicycle wheel on top of Mrs Spicer's garden shed, it really did look like it should be safe to leave the car.
Jordan pulled the sensenet off his head and dropped it beside him and stared at it for a few seconds. Just how had his device ended up inside the car in the first place? He knew that Barry had banged on about hiding the damn thing so he'd never find it, not in a million years but he knew what Barry was like. He would have just thrown it inside the washing machine, or dropped it into the cornflake box in the cupboard or screwed it up and hid it inside a shoe. Basically, nothing that elaborate.
His house still offered sanctuary. Even with the broken windows. Jordan knew Barry would have felt the same, especially after travelling all the way from the other side of town. Would he have had to avoid the window-smashing, speed-junkie super-zombies at some point? You could bet your bottom dollar at that one, which meant his best mate sure as fuck wouldn't have left the house just to place this damn sensenet inside this car. So where did that leave him?
How about with yet another unanswered question to add to the ever growing pile of unanswered questions? Jordan picked up the sensenet dropped it by his feet then covered it with the blanket, while secretly believing that when the time came to enter Necrovoid again, that bastard thing will be right where he needed it to be.
There was one particular question which he did need an answer to. Jordan looked across at his bedroom window, knowing that before long, he would be back in there. Right now though, he couldn't leave the safety of this car without at least dispensing with one task, to see if he could figure out the identity of the real Jenny, the dead guy from the shotgun shop as well as this Harry guy, whoever the fuck he was.
Those three were just another piece of this huge, nonsensical puzzle which appeared to be hitting on his head at every opportunity. Just like the mysterious appearance of that sensenet , the chances of those three almost hitting him was just astronomical.
He leaned over the passenger seat, checking down the side first. He spotted a few empty sweet wrappers beside the handbrake but nothing else of interest. Jordan reached over and pressed in the glove box button. The door fell open to reveal an inch-high pile of folded, white papers lying on top of a road map with a bright red apple next to them. He pulled out the apple, inspected it for blemishes before throwing it on the back seat. He'd eat that later. Jordan grabbed the papers and sat back down, almost expecting to see an achievement unlocked icon flash in the corner of his vision until he remembered that this wasn't the game.
The image of seeing himself plugged into Necrovoid and sitting on his bed flashed before his eyes. Once again, he found that his traitorous mind was always
on hand to remind him of just how fragile his grasp on reality really was. Jordan examined his options and came up with his only real choice. He told his mind to go fuck itself.
That didn't work though, not this time, as his mind followed up the planting the seed that he might still be in Necrovoid by reminding him that the last time he glanced upon his dotty neighbour's shed roof, he saw a frying pan and a lampshade. Where did the bicycle wheel come from?
“Fuck off,” he muttered. “Leave me alone.”
Jordan turned the pile of papers over and over. A red elastic band kept the bundle together but by the looks of it, that band was not going to be able to keep doing its job for much longer. The rubber had frayed in a number of places. A sharp jerk should be all it took to snap the band, which is exactly what he did. The band flew off and vanished, leaving him with several sheets of yellowing paper with absolutely nothing written on any of them.
“What the hell is this?” Jordan unfolded them all and laid them flat on top of each other on the car seat. It wasn't until Jordan reached the last sheet when he actually found something of interest, although the word was very loosely defined as he had never, in his life, found the picture of a sword in red silhouette remotely interesting. He went through the sheets one more time, just in case he'd missed anything. Nothing, not a thing, apart from that sword picture. He so wanted to hit something. So much for unlocking any achievement. What was the point of that? Jordan pulled out the last object and unfolded the map over the seat. The map showed an unknown town in high detail. Jordan frowned. It's strange how it all seemed familiar but at the same time strange. He folded it up and pushed it back into the glove box. He then changed his mind pulled it back out, folded it again and pushed it into his back pocket.
It was time to investigate the mystery of the second Jordan, a task that he so was not looking forward to. After grabbing the apple, he slowly opened the car door, checked and double-checked to make sure no dead things were on their way back, then left the car. He ran over to the kerb, turned around and crouched so he could look under the car.