Scorched Flesh

by Ian Woodhead

  My dad told me that at its worst time of neglect, the only objects left there were shopping trolleys thrown over the balconies, old prams and rubbish, and there was even a rumour of dead bodies being buried in there. The ground, like the rest of the buildings had been cleared and tidied. Although they had never regained their Victorian splendour, the grounds were pleasing to the eyes.

  I expected to see the restored bandstand, and the wood chipping path that snaked through the ground, surrounded by cut grass. The sight that did pollute my vision was like nothing that I’d even seen before. My fingers gripped the wooden rail tight, and I gaped in utter horror at the sight of the bodies.

  My eyes bulged in their sockets; it hadn’t looked like this a few moments ago. I felt that I was losing my mind.

  There must have been hundreds of them down there. Every one of them was stripped naked, from what I could tell, judging from the lacerations and scraps of coloured material laying around the bodies, the process hadn’t been gentle. My stomach squeezed into a tight ball, I wanted to whip my head to the side, to stop these vile images from entering my eyes and stripping the goodness from my soul, but my muscles refused to obey.

  All the bodies were laid out side by side, entirely covering the area. There were what looked like leafless branches growing out of the ground at the side of every head. My numb mind calmly told me that, like the cadavers, they weren’t there a few moments ago either.

  “What the fuck is going on?” I moaned.

  My body gave me back full control when I saw one of those figures move. Like a ripple on a still lake, the movement spread until all the bodies were rocking from side to side. Then, as soon as it started, the bodies stopped. “I must be dreaming this!”

  One of the bodies then moved their head, and I stared in horror at the man who had served me my pint not half an hour ago. I started to shiver before a single terrified croak left my lips.

  When that leafless branch growing beside the barman’s face bent down and wrapped its smaller branches around the man’s face, I’m ashamed to say that my bladder released its contents. As warm piss streamed down my legs; those branches squeezed tighter and tighter until the bulging skin burst in over a dozen places. The others had all followed its lead by now.

  I blindly ran until I reached the next set of stairs. I remember hearing thousands of tortured screams ripping though my ears before my feet betrayed me. My hands reached for the rail before something hard struck my back, the pain setting my whole body aflame with agony. I shut my eyes, and welcomed oblivion.

  ***

  Does it surprise you to discover that the bloodtrees actually started out so small? I know it’s hard to imagine that they were once smaller than their prey. Don’t think for one minute that just because the bastards weren’t the size of skyscrapers that they weren’t impossible to destroy.

  Unlike your generation, we didn’t have any scatter guns or sentinel beam weapons. Even if we had access to off-world tech, I doubt that the pitiful survivors that escaped the first culling would have been in any fit state to fight back.

  Looking back, I’m surprised we did endure. You see, unlike other areas of the world, our government banned the use of just about any offensive weapon. Not just rifles and pistols, but knives, swords, you name it. The bastards left us defenceless. The best we had were crossbows and kitchen knives. Oh, don’t get me wrong, there would have been a few illegal weapons around, but I bet, thanks to the first culling, their owners never managed to get to use them.

  I want you to keep that fact at the front of your mind, young man. Your fathers and mothers somehow managed to stay alive with whatever weapons we could salvage. Also, remember, we were only fucking civilians, and what we knew of combat could be scrawled on the back of a stamp. Well, most of us were anyhow.

  I need to backtrack; I’m jumping too far here. My younger self has only begun to understand the nightmare that was about to engulf us. He has yet to encounter the Sentinels, the Bonestrippers, or the hordes of Jellyspiders. As for the Black Harvesters, he’ll be encountering those vile abominations very soon.

  Seriously, I really am astounded that we did survive the initial onslaught, considering what was about to befall our species. Fuck, I still find it difficult to believe that we actually used to think that we were a superior organism.

  ***

  The dull pain coursing through my spine jolted me awake, and yet even though my eyes were wide open, I could see nothing at all. I drew in my breath, about to cough out what felt like a lump of dust, when a rough hand slapped over my mouth.

  “Don’t even think of making a noise!” hissed a familiar voice. “If they find us in here, we’ll be dead, simple as.”

  I blinked rapidly, muffling a cry as a small disk of yellow light appeared in front of my eyes. The beam moved off me, illuminating our cramped surroundings. The shock of finding myself reunited with Mark paled into insignificance.

  Forget what I said earlier about not being claustrophobic. The four wooden walls enclosing me were moving towards me. I gulped down the panic, telling myself to calm down, that it was just an illusion. I was perfectly safe, they weren’t moving at all.

  “Will you stop it with the struggling, you dim twat! It’s me, it’s Mark, and you’re perfectly safe.”

  I don’t think Mark expected me to snatch the torch out of his hands. If what he had just muttered was true, then he wasn’t in any position to voice a complaint. I fumbled with the rubber switch until the damned light flicked off, and rolled it behind me. Having no light at all was far more preferable to seeing those four walls and believing that all four of them were slowly closing in, ready to turn my body into a raw meat pizza.

  The utter blackness took my stress level down a couple of notches and allowed my shattered nerves to lose a little more tension. I listened to our shallow breathing, while hearing the occasional scraping coming from beyond that door. I attempted to block out that worrying sound, which was very difficult, as all sorts of uncomfortable imagery was attaching themselves to that noise, and believe me, none of the pictures looked remotely like cute, fluffy bunnies. They all looked very similar to the surreal and nightmarish sights that assaulted my senses before waking up in this cupboard.

  No matter what direction I took, all I saw was a jumbled collection of disturbing pictures that belonged in the nightmares of the insane. I didn’t want to be part of that crowd, that much I did know.

  “Mark, this is real, isn’t it? I mean, no fucker has dropped something into our drinks, have they?” I groped along the floor until my probing fingers found his arm. “I don’t understand any of this.” He didn’t protest when I held his wrist tight. “The fragments that I do remember don’t make any sense at all.”

  Did I really see all those rows of naked bodies with the tiny skeletal bushes growing up next to their faces? That image of the plant-thing wrapping its fat branches around the barman’s face is going to haunt me forever.

  “Oh, it’s real all right, buddy,” he muttered. “Fuck, it’s real alright.”

  “Then for the love of God, tell me what is happening, Mark. What have you seen out there?”

  “You’d better pass me that torch, it’ll be easier to show you.” He took a deep breath. “Cos there’s no way on this planet that I could describe it.” Mark paused. “I think we’ll be okay now, sounds like they’ve gone.”

  I felt along the floor until my fingers brushed over the ridged plastic handle. “Here you go,” I said. “Just please don’t turn it back on in here again.”

  Mark shook off my hand. “Big fucking baby.”

  I felt him stand up and move one step back. Just for that split second, I almost believed that he had somehow left me in here, locked in a dark room with the knowledge of slime coated monsters and blood sucking like trees crawling around outside, just waiting for me to open that door.

  My volatile imagination took a running jump as a narrow line of daylight uncovered a thin strip of pink painted wood.
<
br />   “Yep, they must have gone; I can’t see any of them about.”

  “Any of what?” I whispered, jumping to my feet.

  Mark pushed the door a little wider to allow him to push his head through the gap. “Just as I thought.” He took another deep breath. “I bet they’ve gone to find more poor shmucks to harass.”

  He rushed out of the cupboard, then moments later his arm snaked back in and pulled me out into the interior of an unfamiliar shop. It took me a few seconds to get my bearings.

  The profusion of pastel coloured lace, a wall fixture crammed with teddy bears of all shapes and sizes, and cardboard boxes full of wool told me exactly where I was.

  Although I’d never set foot in this place in my life, I knew that Mark had dragged me into the Fur and Fluff Emporium, a large shop of two units knocked into one; we were still on the second floor of the mill. Justine adored this place, she and the rest of the town’s female population of all ages. The horrible place just stunk of cuteness and soft fabrics.

  “I bet that they’re searching through every shop that isn’t locked up.”

  “For crying out loud, Mark, if you don’t cough up and tell me what you’ve seen, I swear to God that I’ll punch you into next week!”

  He leaned closer. “It’s the Blanket people.” Mark took another deep breath, and clenched his fists. “They’re not going to get me a second time,” he growled. “No fucking chance.”

  Instinct told me to keep my trap shut so I wouldn’t say anything stupid. If he wanted to believe that his childhood nightmares had somehow come to life, then I wasn’t going to piss on his bonfire. Granted, his delusions didn’t do shit to help me learn who we were supposed to be hiding from, but I guessed I’d learn the truth eventually.

  This guy was out for revenge, to exact payback for years of bed-wetting nightmares when he was just a nipper. Mark looked like the generic eighties action hero, about to blow bubblegum, and kick ass.

  “Why the hell did I have to go and pull you into here? I should have carried your body into the wargaming centre next door. They’ve got a replica Dwarven battle-axe bolted to the wall.

  “Come on, man. Start from the beginning, give me the low down.”

  Mark ran over to the window, and he pressed his nose against the glass, “I can’t see any of them now, I must be right about them searching the other shops.” He looked back at me before sliding to the floor. “You were gone for ages, man. I waited for like half an hour, until I decided to go see where you’d disappeared to. I had it fixed in my mind that you’d taken it upon yourself to sneak into the ice cream parlour on the ground floor and treat yourself to a Raspberry mudslide, complete with rainbow crystal topping. You have no idea of the damage I was about to inflict upon your kidneys.” He grinned. “Then I saw my first Blanket person.”

  The colour slipped from his face, and the grin turned into a grimace.

  “I got out of my car and…” Mark paused. “Shit, why the hell did I do that?” He turned to me. “That’s my first mistake. Seriously, can you believe that I spent more time looking out for a traffic warden than looking for you? Anyway, it was only when I reached the mill door when alarm bells started to ring and.”

  He went even whiter, and started to shake. If I was expecting an eighties action hero now, I was in for a disappointment. Mark looked more like the generic movie wimp. Wide eyes, shivering torso, spots of drool at the side of his mouth. I was tempted to ask him if he wanted to join me for a spot of cupboard hiding.

  “The first one was in the middle of that hippie shop just by the front gate. I saw it way before it saw me, but then again, I’m not ever sure that it would have been able to see me on account that it had no eyes.” He shook his head. “It’s weird, you know. The blanket people from my dreams really were made of blankets, folded up material in the rough shape of a human. This ‘thing’ really did look just like that, Travis, and yet, it didn’t. He shook his head again. “Oh, I don’t fucking know. I’m ashamed to say that I was so tempted to just turn tail, and run back to the car.”

  I blinked, trying to imagine what the chances really were of him seeing something that looked like his nightmares. Those images of all those people from the town laid out on that square danced in front of my eyes again. They looked normal, and they also looked dead, but at least they were recognisable as human. “I’m glad you didn’t, Mark. Thank you for that.”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, well, despite the fact that my brain almost detonated at the sight of yet another blanket person sitting on the counter in the shop next door, I knew I had to find you, Travis. Not too difficult, thank God. Your body was lying at the foot of the stairs. Thing is, just as I reached you, three more of them were coming out of the square, and heading in my direction. They stood between us and that front door, hence the reason why we both ended up in that cupboard.”

  I watched him get his nerves under control. The lad’s casing thickened up, and his eyes lost that lost little boy look, while I still stayed the same terrified toddler, wanting mummy. My heart was so frantically trying to beat its way out of my ribcage, I was surprised that Mark didn’t ask me to keep the noise down.

  He got onto his knees, turned, and peered through the bottom of the window. “I reckon that we can get over to that shop, you know. Hell, it’s only three doors down. We could be there in seconds.”

  I looked back at the cupboard with a sense of longing, wondering if I could go back in there, shut my eyes, and count to about a hundred. By the time I’d reached my magical number, maybe everything would be back to normal, and I could go and buy my dad’s stupid model, then spend the rest of the day in the pub.

  That’s what was supposed to happen on a Saturday. I don’t want to play this game anymore. The plain white wall clock hanging over a column of small blue teddies casually informed me that over two hours had passed since I had entered this mill. Amazingly, my guts then chimed in to demand food. “Mark, I just want to go home. I don’t feel very well.” My eyes drifted down to those boxes of wool on the floor in front of us. In particular, a tattered cardboard box that at some point in its life contained tins of peas. The bright red material flowing over the side moved with the breeze, only there wasn’t any draft in here.

  “We have to weapon up, buddy. We won’t even make it to the car, never mind your house. Don’t stress out, Travis, I haven’t set you wrong yet so far.”

  His macho words of comfort didn’t sink in. That box of red wool held my full attention, that stuff really was moving!

  “No fucking way!” I gasped. Something in that box squealed, and seconds later, something jumped out of the box and landed on the hard tiled floor. It looked like a cross between a dozen folded up cooked pasta sheets, and fungus growing on the side of a tree. It rolled itself up then flattened out again before inching closer to my feet. I squealed loudly, and drew my feet into my body. My brain did a thousand back flips before finding something close to neutral. At the back of my head, I saw my mum giggling like a hyena at the sight of my dad glued to the TV as he watched some crappy 70’s scifi show. She wasn’t laughing at my dad, her mirth was directed at the ridiculous special effects.

  As the ‘whatever the hell it was’ rolled and slivered closer to my foot, mum’s unique laugh echoed around my head. I jumped up and slammed the soul of my shoe down on it, and cringed at the sound of it splatting. It felt like I’d just stamped on a dozen slugs.

  I scraped the mess off my shoe, feeling as though I’d just saved the world, and grinned at Mark. “That sure sorted that out.”

  He slowly nodded, and pointed to the squashed red stained mess on the floor. “Well done, Travis, you’ve just stood on a mouse.” He crouched down, and used a pen to scrape through the glutinous slime. “There you go.”

  Mark used the end to push out a long piece that looked like twine, only it wasn’t that at all. “That’s a mouse tail. Shit, what is going on?”

  He grabbed the door handle, and pulled it down. “I bet that the blanket
people must be made from the same stuff. That axe is going to turn them all into ribbons of tagliatelle. Come on!” Mark pulled up the door and ran out into the hallway, leaving me alone and still trying to make sense of what was happening here. I looked back at the cardboard box, then at the mouse tail. A connection had just been made. Thanks to my dad trying to mould me into a Mini Me version of him when I was younger by feeding me on a diet of science fiction, I saw my friend swinging his axe into one of his blanket people, and a mobile phone falling into that cut up mess of red pasta.

  “Wait on!” I screamed, running out of the shop. Bloody hell, I could see it even now, Mark running up and down the hallways of the mill, cutting down his blanket people with his newly acquired battle axe, only to discover later on that he’d just murdered half the town’s student population.

  I saw no sign of Mark. That sensation of being alone tore into me once more. I spun around, looking down the other end of the hallway, not wanting to believe that Mark had just abandoned me here. I opened my mouth, intending to scream out his name and yet the word died in my throat, my imagination kicking me in the face by showing every shop door opening simultaneously, and hundreds of Mark’s blanket people stepping out.

  “Fuck you, Mark,” I swore, running and crouching, heading for the wargaming shop. This dreamlike situation really had gone on too far. I suddenly stopped between two windows, stood up, and slammed my back against the stones, followed by my fists. Tears streamed down my face. I had no idea whether it was from the pain of feeling my knuckles hit the wall or from the frustration, confusion, and utter panic of my circumstances. Frankly, I didn’t care anymore. That scream bubbled up my throat; this time, I didn’t hold it back.