Necrovoid

by Ian Woodhead

  The noise stopped. Had she given up? Jordan grabbed a dining chair and pushed the back up against the door handle. What if he didn’t wake up? What if the kids falling into comas were happening in reality too? Jordan might end up reliving this fucking scenario over and over for the rest of his life!

  “Games have rules,” he repeated. Jordan ran over to the door, thinking that all he had to do was get over to Barry’s house and use his sensenet . The fact that in this particular game scenario, the main antagonist appeared to be werewolves had already sunk in but he brushed that away, needing to focus on one step at a time.

  The door refused to open. It wasn’t locked, the damn thing just wouldn’t move. He moaned out in pure agony when he saw the wooden door frame just melded with the door itself. Oh Christ, now what was he going to do? Jordan heard a noise, he looked over at the other door. It sounded like heavy footsteps bouncing on wood. He frowned, then moaned again when he figured it out. His werewolf sister was climbing the stairs, getting ready to run back down. That door would stand no chance and neither would he!

  In his panic, he booted something lying on the tiles. He glanced down. There was a parcel by the table leg addressed to him. “Since when did I get stuff through the door.” Jordan scooped it up. It was a rectangular parcel, wrapped in plain brown paper with his name and address written in red marker. He turned it over and saw a small sticker in the corner displaying the return address.

  “Pitstop Games, Unit nine, Highgate Shopping Centre.”

  That was the game shop from the deep game! He didn’t even try to work out what was happening, his mind too preoccupied at the sound of his sister thundering her way down those stairs reached his ears. He whimpered while ripping off the brown paper. The box slipped out of his hands and fell on to the tiles. Jordan caught the word Necrovoid, a moment before the box opened and another sensenet fell out.

  He laughed out loud, picked it up and quickly rolled it over his head, just as the inner door broke open. His werewolf sister raced towards him, her fangs dripping with thick saliva. Jordan chose the only option left. He sat on the remaining wooden chair, gave her the middle finger then closed his eyes.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Seventh Insertion

  He dare not move. Jordan struggled to keep his breathing shallow. Oh God, what were it doing to that dead woman? Jenny's fingers threatened to break his bones and he suspected his fingers were doing the same to her too. She shuffled a little closer and that slight movement caught the attention of the thing which they hadn't been able to shake. The thing which took two shotgun blasts without flinching. Jordan pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth. The thing which now stared directly at their hiding place.

  Its green lantern eyes stared without blinking at Jordan's face for a full minute before returning to whatever it was doing to that dessicated body at the entrance to the alley. Jenny eased the pressure on his hand. It hadn't seen them! Maybe they'd live through this after all.

  This thing was what Jenny had warned him about earlier on, the next evolutionary step for those plant-pod creatures. It truly was the product of nightmares. Although its bilateral body symmetry betrayed its once human origin, precious little remained of the host creature. It stood around seven foot high, its grey, ostrich-like legs holding up a thick barrelled torso, packed with hard muscles. Two over-long arms held thick builder's hands, each one equipped with bone knives. Right now, this monster used those knives to open up the corpse by slicing the dry flesh along the spine. Once it had pulled the skin back, it then leaned over the body, opened its snake mouth and fastened those jaws over the exposed spine.

  Jordan thought it was going to bite through the bone but it looked like the damn thing was giving it the kiss of life. Another full minute passed before this monster released the body. It threw the corpse on the ground, turned around and scuttled off in the opposite direction.

  It took Jordan another minute before daring to move. "Are you okay?" He hissed. Jordan took the barely noticeable nod as a confirmation before untangling their fingers and moving out of the shadows. The damp stone had soaked his clothing. Jordan couldn't stop shivering but it wasn't because of the cold water sticking his shirt to his back, it was solely due to what he now saw in the distance. That nightmarish creature had found another dried up body in the doorway of a shop. It dragged it into the middle of the road and performed the same macabre procedure to what it did to the dodgy close to them.

  He took a couple a paces towards the mummified body, curious to see why the creature targeted that instead of continuing its pursuit of them. Not that he was complaining about that weird bastard's change of prey as he knew if that the dried up dead thing hadn’t stumbled out of its hiding place and tried to snag them, that nightmare would have eventually found him and Jenny.

  They had easily evaded its grasping arms, and just as they were too fast for it, the dead thing had been much too slow for the new monster. It had even attempted to shamble away but the nightmare simply snapped out its terrifying arms, dug its long claws into the dead thing's face and dragged it back.

  Jenny pulled at his sleeve. He started, not realising she'd followed him onto the path.

  “Don't get too close,” she said.

  “Relax, Jenny. I think it is truly fucking dead now, especially since that the long-legged freekazoid sucker out its spinal juice.”

  “You think that's what it did?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve no idea but it's the only thing that makes sense.” Jordan nudged the thing with shotgun barrel. Grimacing when a chunk of skull flaked off. “That's just nasty,” he muttered. “Okay,” he said, turning back to Jenny. “We'd best start making tracks. I think that thing has gone now. Thankfully, in the opposite direction to the way we are going.” She wanted to go and visit a factory which manufactured chemicals. Orchard Industries they were called. Their facility was situated on the edge of town, behind guard towers, high fences tipped with razor wire, guard dogs and closed circuit television. Jenny had argued that any place with such over the top security precautions were bound to be hiding something.

  He wanted to argue that the damn place stored possibly large quantities of chemicals many of them having the dual purpose of bomb making, hence the reason for all the security measures. Jordan kept silent. He knew her determination to find a cure for this wouldn't be put off by anything he could say otherwise. The girl needed to come to terms with their desperate situation on her own as it was pretty fucking obvious that she wasn't going to listen to common sense from him or anyone else for that matter. Fine, let her drag them around some abandoned chemical factory which made shampoo and toilet disinfectant. Whatever, it isn't like his events diary was all that full anyway.

  The place wasn't that far from here, less than half a mile. They should be there in a few minutes. Jordan looked back at Jenny intending to ask her if she had thought of a way to get inside. His mouth opened then shut when he saw her shaking. “Jenny, what's wrong?”

  She didn't say a word, just extended her arm and pointed at his feet. Jordan spun around and saw the mummified dead thing was no longer still. In fact, it had managed to roll onto its back and sit up. He jumped back when one of its arms reached for the shotgun.

  He reacted instinctively. “Get the fuck away!” he screamed, while jumping back. Jordan raised the gun, his finger already on the trigger. Jordan heard a woman's voice begging him not to shoot. He might have even listened to the warning if the dead thing didn't get off the floor and run at them.

  His finger squeezed the trigger which blasted out the weapon’s deadly contents straight into the target’s chest. The damn thing literally exploded, showering them both from head to foot in foul smelling grey powder. Jordan fell back, gasping and choking as the stuff clogged his nose and throat. He dropped to his knees, hacking and coughing. Jordan couldn't get out a breath, he couldn’t see either as the powder had gone into his eyes, he couldn’t even hear very well. The torture did diminish due to his body ejec
ting most of the foul powder out of his throat and the non-stop tears clearing his eyes.

  He lay there, watching, through blurred vision, as several more of those walking spore factories neared his location Jordan reckoned he had another few minutes before moving, they weren’t travelling that fast. “Oh God, I feel like I’ve just swallowed the contents of a cement bag,” he croaked. “Jenny, how are you doing?”

  Jordan moaned when he received no reply. “Jenny?” She wasn’t there! The woman was already on her feet and sprinting away from him, heading straight for the canal. Jordan tried shouting but the words stuck fast in his mouth, causing him to start coughing again. Nevertheless, he still attempted to give chase. Jordan couldn’t lose Jenny as well. Whilst chasing after her, he spotted several more of those walking spore factories, they emerged from inside buildings, rolled out from under vehicles or, like the one which got them, simply reanimated, twitching at first then trying to stand up and moving from the place where they originally fell.

  That single nightmare on legs couldn’t have possibly reached all of these dead people so quickly which meant there had to be another one or possibly a number of the new nightmares running around.

  Jordan did his best to calm his volatile thoughts. He dare not go to pieces now, not while his Jenny was in such a traumatic state. He tightened his grip around the shotgun. Let the bastards come. There was plenty of shells left. Tackling with him would be the worst thing they did, that’s for damn sure. He raced along the pavement while keeping his attention on the running woman.

  His last entanglement with that single nightmare had resulted in no damage whatsoever to the nightmare. Jordan knew that, his mind knew that too, he just chose to ignore it, preferring to believe in his hastily constructed fantasy of him standing on top of a pile of their bodies, his smoking shotgun in one hand while Jenny held his other hand.

  The stupid dream came to an abrupt end at the sight of the woman jumping into the middle of the canal. “What the hell is she playing at?” Jordan reached the wall separating the road from the canal, leaped over it and scrambled down the embankment. He couldn’t see her anywhere. What was he going to do now? He couldn’t swim.

  “Jenny?” he screamed. “Are you alright?” What a fucking idiotic thing to say. Of course she wasn’t alright. Nobody in their right mind throws themselves into the local canal. Not even the wildlife went anywhere near the water. Christ knows what was in it. He approached the edge, already fearing the worst. What if Jenny couldn’t swim either? “Jenny!”

  He spotted a couple of bubbles, a metre away from where he stood. Jordan leaned over. “Jenny?” It was difficult to see anything in that murky gloop. “Jenny!” He managed to get out a single shocked yelp when an arm emerged from under the surface, it grabbed his ankle and jerked him into the freezing water.

  Panic overtook his entire system. He shrieked out which then turned into a bubbling choke as the stinking water gushed down his throat. Jordan was vaguely aware of being dragged to the other side of the canal and of somebody pulling his soaking body out.

  “You need to calm down, you idiot.”

  Somebody got Jordan onto his knees and bent him over. He continued to cough, his stomach throwing up a mixture of canal water mixed with the dust and somewhere in that mixture, Jordan felt the mushed up remains of his burger meal forcing up his throat and out of his mouth.

  A pink blob appeared in his field of vision. The blob transformed into Jenny’s concerned face. She picked him up and pulled Jordan over to the side of a brick building next to the canal footpath. She gently stroked his cheek and after a few more seconds she slowly lowered him to the ground.

  “You can’t swim. Sorry, I didn’t know that.”

  How could she possibly know that anyway. Oh hell, he leaned forward and coughed up some more unidentifiable bits of Christ knows what. Jordan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before turning his head. Jenny dug out a bottle of water. She wiped the cap on the grass, unscrewed it, took a few swallows then passed it to him. He lifted the bottle up only for her to grab the bottle.

  “Small sips, Jordan. If you start gulping it down, you’ll end up bringing it all back up”.

  He did as she suggested. The clean water just had to be the best ever cold beverage to grace his throat. Jordan took a few more sips before reluctantly handing the now half empty bottle back to her. He waited for the woman to finish the bottle before speaking. “What the hell were you thinking?” It took a small degree of effort to reign in his volatile emotions. Jordan knew exactly why she did it. Having a mummified zombied monster thing exploding all over you was bound to make you feel like having a fucking bath. It was her doing the road runner act which pissed him off more than anything. She left him up there.

  Jenny looked him in the eye. She didn’t say anything for a few seconds then her face crumpled up. “We’re fucked, Jordan. Totally and utterly fucked!” She caught her breath. “I can still feel that foul stuff inside me. We’re both infected. What are we going to do now?”

  He wrapped his fingers over hand. “You don’t know that. Neither of us do. The water will have gotten rid of the stuff before it could do any damage.”

  She shook her head. “No, it’s not possible. We’re infected.”

  Jordan though it wise not to mention that the reason why the canal smelled so bad was probably down to the chemical facility she wanted to visit. Christ knows what shit they had dumped in here over the years. “Hey, enough of this. Come on, Jenny. What happened to the woman who refused to give up?” He stood up and pulled her onto her feet. “You’re the one who told me that there was always a chance, no matter how slim. Are you telling me that you’re going to throw your philosophy out of the window just because you got covered in a bit of dust?”

  “Are you fucking shitting me. A bit of dust? We both got the full brunt. Do you know how much stuff it took to infect people the last time this happened?”

  He shook his head, dreading the answer. It was pretty clear that she’d already made up her mind. As far as she was concerned, they were both condemned to death, all that remained was the time limit.

  “It took a spoonful,” she spat. “A fucking spoonful. Jordan, be honest with me here, do you think we received a bit more than a spoonful?” Jenny lifted her head and gazed at the passing clouds. “Oh, it’s okay. Take your time. I know it’s a difficult one to answer. Would you like to phone a friend?”

  Jordan turned around and looked back to where they had come. He saw about a dozen of those walking spore factories now. They weren’t doing much of anything apart from generally milling around. Jordan figured they needed live bodies close to them before they got all excited. He then looked at the footpath which followed the canal. The last time he followed the route was a couple of years ago when he took Charlotte and Gail for a picnic. They ended up in a pub garden about two miles from here due to a group of idiots on mountain bikes deciding it would be hilarious to cycle through the middle of their picnic. He seemed to recall Gail managing to pull one of the teens off his bike and busting his nose before the terrified brat managed to jump back on his bike and get away.

  When that woman got on one, she was formidable. Strange really. Gail had no problem with the kids acting like they did, the tipping point only came when two of them started hurling abuse at Charlotte. Jordan caught a glimpse of Jenny from the corner of his eye. Yeah, that expression. That’s the same one Gail had painted on her face the moment before pulling that kid off his bike.

  It had occurred to him that his feelings towards this apparent stranger was all to whack. He had no idea who she was and yet, he so needed her. What was all that about? Why did he not feel any loss for his family? It’s not like he didn’t love the girls. They weren’t exactly on the verge of a divorce. Hell, he adored the pair of them.

  Jordan turned his back on her and started to walk away, following the canal footpath. It took a couple of seconds for Jenny to catch up. The girl still wore that expression, the one whic
h, if his wife had painted on, would mean he should prepare himself for another dipping. Jordan ground to a halt and turned to face her. “Tell me something, Jenny. When this last happened, you know, with all those dead things throwing the contents of their spoons over people, how long did it take for the changes to take effect?”

  She glared at him, he noticed her grinding her teeth. Jordan decided not to give the woman a winning smile, not really wanting to antagonise her any further. Jenny breathed deeply.

  “You weren’t around in the beginning. I understand that. You and your little family were all tucked up, being nice and cosy, making each other jam sandwiches and cups of tea, pretending that none of this was really happening. That’s why you’re acting like a complete and total bastard. It’s the shock, you see. Delayed reaction coupled with the fact that we’re both really are fucked. That’s why I’m not going to take my knife and plunge it as deep as I can into your bollocks. It took a few minutes.” Jenny took another deep breath. “That’s all it took, Jordan, a few minutes. One moment they were human, the next, fucking monsters.”

  Jordan lifted his arm and tapped the face of his non-existent watch. “We both looked like we’d lost a flour fight before the canal incident. That was a few minutes ago, surely? Does that mean we’re about to change? Or maybe, and I know this is a long shot, but maybe we are immune?”

  She shook her head. “No, of course we aren’t immune. It doesn’t fucking work like that.”

  “Right, and you’re the expert now?” He turned back around and carried on walking.

  “Wait, where are you going?”

  He looked over his shoulder. “You wanted to go to the chemical factory,” he replied. “Or have you forgotten that? Well, you’re in luck, Jenny. This footpath goes straight past the back of the compound.” Jordan carried on walking, aware that Jenny followed but at a distance. His lack of remorse over the loss of his family continued to plague him as did the attraction he had for this stranger.