Scorched Flesh

by Ian Woodhead

  Through blurred vision, I did see half a dozen doors further along the hallway open. In the one nearest to where I stood, I saw the familiar shape of Mark jumping out. His mouth opened and closed, but I had no idea what he’d just said. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t stop screaming. The release felt so good. I didn’t want to stop. All that frustration was just pissing out of me.

  Mark pulled me into the shop, and I gave no resistance, even when he slammed his hand against my mouth again. He leaned towards me until his nose touched mine, and slowly sat me down on the floor.

  “I want you to hold this, Travis.” He let go of me, opened out my fingers, and dropped a tiny metal figure into my palm.

  “You have a K’Talien berserker there, Travis. The Empire uses these warriors to soften up the enemy’s battle-lines before the main force charges in. That is from the fantasy line, but the company have also written in the species into their space warfare series as well.”

  The weight of the damn thing took me by surprise. I had to close my fingers to stop it from falling through my fingers. The thing was utterly grotesque; it reminded me of a cross between an adult pig and an American wrestler, with horns and spines for added effect. Mark was still droning on. I took my eyes off the weird creation and gazed up at him, so trying to allow his nonsense words sink in.

  It proved more difficult than it sounded. I spent the last decade of zoning out my dad when he plunged into geekspeak, there’s only so much warp engine, time travel, and laser dialogue that I could process without feeling the need to murder small animals. Listening to the same weirdness coming from Mark made this whole situation sink even further into the realm of the strange than it already was.

  “Please tell me that you just read all that crap off the side of a box.”

  Mark shook his head, then deftly plucked the figure out of my hand. “I’d better put Alistair’s berserker back. I’ll go spare if he found out that somebody has been touching his precious model.”

  “And who the hell is Alistair?”

  “He’s the guy who spent three full days painting that Berserker. He’s done an absolutely sterling job on it as well, even if he has taken liberties with the clan colours.” After he carefully placed it back into the glass display case, he wandered back over to me and sat down by my feet.

  “I couldn’t get that damn axe off the wall. I was an idiot to think that Donald would make it easy to prise it off. There’s five hooked brackets screwed into the wall. I’ll have to come up with another plan.”

  I felt myself nod. My head was about ready to detonate. “Let me guess, Donald is the owner?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ve been into all this crap for years. Meaning that all the time you’ve been agreeing with me that anyone into this stuff were obviously a bunch of anorak, nerdy, train spotting virgins, was a bunch of bullshit lies?”

  “That’s about the size of it, Travis. You’ve covered all the bases with that sweeping statement.”

  “You’re even worse than my dad.”

  “Again, I can’t deny it.”

  I so wanted to punch the lying little towrag in the face. Jesus, I wasn’t sure what made me angrier, the fact that my best friend had been covering up his dark secret for so long, or that I never guessed. “So I guess that this means that all that stuff about the Blanket People is a bunch of crap as well?”

  He shook his head. “Oh no, that really did happen. I had night terrors for nearly two years.” Mark placed his hands on my shoulders. “How do you feel, Travis?”

  “What sort of a question is that, for crying out loud? How do you think I feel? I feel like my best friend has just shit on me from a great height.”

  “I thought it would have that kind of effect on you. That’s good,” he replied. “You see, when you’re angry, the emotion will push all your other feelings out of the way. I need you to focus on your anger, Travis. Your fear will leave, and with a bit of luck, you won’t freeze up and start screaming again like a big girl’s blouse.”

  “You sound like that green Muppet from Star Wars. Is that where you picked up that piece of bullshit?”

  “No, besides, Yoda always preached that embracing anger will lead you onto the dark side of the path.”

  This was just too much to take in. “Fuck this. I’m going home.”

  “What else did you expect me to do?” he shouted.

  I spun around, keeping my hand on the door handle. “How about starting by not keeping secrets from me? You’re supposed to be my best friend.”

  The unwanted image of me bending his naked sister over our kitchen breakfast bar decided to appear at the front of my mind; so much for not keeping secrets from each other.

  Mark sighed. “I couldn’t tell you. I’ve seen how you behave in front of your dad, and if you knew that I was just like him, you would have disowned me, Travis. I’m not sure that I could have taken that rejection.”

  I frowned. “So why now, why after all these years?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? We’re at war. This is a full scale invasion.” Mark ran over to the window. “Obviously, this is the advance guard. We still need to weapon up if we want to get out of here in one piece.”

  ***

  I don’t need to see your face to know that you must be feeling as confused as I was all those years ago. I’m describing a world to you that must be as alien as the place where our invaders came from, not only in the landscape, but also their mindset.

  This was a settled society, my son. I know that I’ve already explained how our priorities back then were so trivial and irrelevant. It’s just that I can’t emphasise on this point enough.

  I have wondered if the invaders would have had such an easy time if they had arrived on this planet five hundred years ago. Sure, our technology was practically non-existent, but at least we knew how to fight. As for our machines? Well, a fat lot of use they were.

  How can I remember something that happened with crystal clarity from thirty-eight years ago? That’s because the following events will be forever burned into my mind. Oh, and if you’re expecting my teenage self and Mark to emerge from that mill unscathed, only to see the skies black with an impossible amount of the alien Blastships, then think again. None of what the others say truly happened. Our history has been re-written.

  Before I continue, I’m guessing that you’ve already figured out what Mark’s blanket people really were, and that something inside the globes were responsible for their change.

  It made sense to our embryonic resistance that the invaders would have some method of softening up their enemy before the main strike force, a bit like Mark’s K’Talien berserker, but without the extra horns and multicoloured armour.

  At the time, I believed it as well. It’s only when I looked back at the evidence, I started to have doubts. The theory was that these poor bastards found these globes, and the chemicals in the alien pod somehow made the victim take them to a secluded gathering place, like the square in the mill. The globes hatched, grew into the blood trees, and fed on the humans, who, in turn became the blanket people. Yeah, it all made sense, apart from the slight detail of how did those people from the pub get there, considering Mark and I left that place and drove to the mill?

  One of the reasons why I ended up in this cell is because I asked that question. Wait, I’m jumping too far ahead again. I need to go back to where I left Mark and my very confused younger self.

  ***

  They ambushed us, literally seconds after we left the wargaming shop. Being unable to pull that axe off the wall hadn’t dissuaded Mark from finding an alternative weapon. After a frantic scout around the shop, he had opted for a table leg. I hadn’t even bothered looking for anything. Despite everything that had happened to me in this mill, I still had trouble believing my own eyes.

  After the door shut behind us, Mark took the lead, holding his table leg as if it really was that battle axe. I started to think that he’d been secretly fantasising about something like t
his to befall us for a long time. We both saw nothing weird. Apart from the obvious lack of people, nothing looked out of place. We creeped forward whilst keeping a lookout. Only the only direction we didn’t look was up.

  Two of them dropped on Mark as soon as he passed through the archway. The table leg fell from his hand as he fell under the weight of the things. His muffled screams broke my paralysis, and I drove my boot into the nearest pulsating mass of layered slime. My panicked action had no effect. It felt as effective as kicking a bramble bush.

  “What am I supposed to do?” I yelled. My friend was being eaten right in front of me, and there was nothing I could do to help. I growled in frustration, then saw his table leg. I lunged for it and yelled out again, when I noticed that the ceiling was full of them, all hanging down like bats.

  I swung the leg, and like my foot, it went right through the top creature, but it also cut the thing in half, and beneath the thing’s grey fungus-like flesh, I caught a glimpse of Mark’s clothing. I swung the leg again, grinning in savage fury as the improvised weapon shredded the other creature’s body.

  My thoughts that these were once human left me. All I saw were monsters trying to kill my friend. My frantic actions had, at least, uncovered Mark’s legs. I dropped the weapon, lunged forward, and wrapped my fingers around his ankles, pulling Mark out of the rancid mess.

  I almost cried with relief when I saw that his was still in one piece. That dreaded feeling of only pulling out empty clothing or a blanket person had pressed down on me as I struggled to wrench him free. Apart from looking as though he’d been in a trifle fight, the lad seemed okay.

  “Oh my God!” he gasped. Mark turned his head, and stared at the wall. “They were trying to get inside me.” He choked back a single sob. “I had to clamp my hands over my ears to stop them. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here now. I could feel their rubbery tendrils trying to peel my lips apart.”

  He suddenly leaned to the side, and threw up. “Oh, Jesus, I can still feel them on me.”

  I shrugged off my top, wrapped it around Mark’s shoulders, and then gently lifted him off the ground. I kept my eyes fixed on the remainder of those things, still crawling across the ceiling. Despite the amount of noise and struggling we made in the past few minutes, no more of them had dropped down.

  Did they need their victims to directly pass under them before dropping? If that was the case, then these things didn’t strike me as an effective advance guard. If this was the best they could do, then I didn’t think this alien invasion would be that successful.

  “I’ve got some bad news for you, Mark. You owe me a new jacket, as there’s no way that I’m wearing that again.”

  “I’m glad you’re having lots of fun,” he muttered.

  I grinned back. “Don’t let this experience get to you, Mark. I need to focus on being angry instead. After all, anger is a very powerful emotion.”

  “Fuck off, you’re about as funny as explosive diarrhoea.“

  “That’s a lot better than looking like I’ve just taken a swim in the stuff.”

  Mark’s weapon of choice had rolled further down the hallway, underneath a group of three of them clustered together.

  “Leave it,” said Mark. “I mean, it didn’t do me much use.” He gazed up, and pulled a sour face. “I’d have probably been better with an umbrella.”

  As I watched them manoeuvre across the ceiling like human fungi, Mark’s words about this being some kind of advance guard would not leave me alone. I shifted my attention to Mark, who had removed my top and turned it inside out. “What are you doing?”

  “My clothes are ruined,” he replied, stripping off his own t-shirt before slipping his arms back into my jacket. “We can’t get out that way. I think we should take a short cut through the square and see if the north gate is clear.”

  I looked at the discarded clothes, then back at the creatures above us. “Oh fuck,” I whispered. “It’s just like shedded skin.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t you get it? Those poor things are just the waste products, that’s what I mean. Your advance guard, Mark, you armour plated warriors, are in the square waiting for us.” I felt sick to my stomach. My tired mind had just about had enough of everything. I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes, listening to the sound of Mark’s blanket people sliver along the ceiling, as well as my friend’s laboured breathing. “I’m ready when you are,” I uttered. “I think we can…”

  My last words caught in my throat as a horrendous screeching blasted down the hallway. It was nothing like I ever heard before. I dropped to my knees, and slammed my hands tight against my ear, but even with this, the wailing still permeated into my ears. Imagine the sound of jagged fingernails dragging down a blackboard coupled with screaming babies, then multiply it a thousand times.

  My eyes wanted to bleed. I cried and yelled out, feeling my teeth shaking loose, and my very bones softening. I believed that this inhuman howling would go on forever, then the sound suddenly cut off, leaving me feeling like my hands were glued to the side of my head.

  Weak and shaky, I dared myself to prise my hand away, and used the wall to drag myself up. “I feel like my skin is three sizes too big for me.”

  Mark wiped a length of drool from the corner of his mouth, and nodded. “We’re lucky though.” He pointed to the ceiling.

  “What the hell?” The creatures were no more. The only thing that remained to show that they’d ever been there were a dozen dirty wet yellow and red stains on the concrete floor. “Did that noise do that?”

  “It shook them to pieces, Travis, and those pieces just liquidised.”

  He walked forward and used his boot to kick his weapon closer to me. I thought he was going to pick it up, but instead, he booted it through an open door.

  “At least the path is clear now,” he said.

  “I know. We’re still going through the square though.”

  “You what? Seriously, have you lost your mind? Do you want to end up like a vomit coloured stain as well.”

  “Don’t you want to find out what’s down there?”

  “Oh, of course I do, but I’d prefer to check it out from a distance of about thirty miles.” He grabbed my wrist. “We need to move.”

  “I agree,” I said, pulling him in the opposite direction, and towards the door that led to the square. “We take a look, and go the other way, I promise.” I was in the same mind as Mark. I didn’t want to stay around here either. Saying that, I still needed to find out just what the hell is in here with us.

  He put up no protest as I pulled Mark towards the stairway. I couldn’t even describe my own thoughts. It felt as though my mind had found its way onto the largest rollercoaster in existence, and had no intention of getting off. Every emotion was tugging at me; one moment, I wanted to release Mark, wait for him to dash off like a rabbit on the run from a fox, then follow him; the next moment, I wanted to scream out in fury, punch the walls, and dive at the first non-human looking thing that we meet.

  For a few of these moments, I did wonder if I was losing my mind.

  As we descended, and the stone archway came into view, some of my lucidity gained a firm foothold, and somehow I did manage to get these volatile feelings into some order. At least the more benign emotions finally fucked off, leaving the terror and rage in control of my body, with the former taking precedence at the sight of the vivid light cast from the square, projecting a crimson hue across the front of the ground floor shops.

  “I really don’t think we should go any farther,” hissed Mark.

  I agreed with him, yet that decision had not reached my feet. I moved closer, feeling sweat drip down my forehead. Not only had the sky changed colour, the temperature had risen to summer greenhouse levels.

  The bodies had gone, and only the alien structures remained, but they’d grown since I last saw them. Jesus, that’s the underestimation of the century. The things were now almost as tall as this three storey mill!
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  Their skeletal branches thrust from the bases of each structure, joining with each other, to create an almost solid block of a crystal-like mesh ten feet above the ground. The bright sunlight filtered through the almost translucent branches to give the square and the surroundings its red tinge.

  Call me irrational, but the more I gazed at this dreamlike organic construction, the more my bewildered emotions fell in love with its beauty. My logic overcame my feelings when I realised that the colour could only have come from the food it had consumed.

  “We can’t go through there!” cried Mark.

  I saw why as soon as I looked back on the ground. Hundreds of scarlet tendrils had burst through the soft soil, waving like a thousand angry snakes. I suddenly jumped back when the stone beneath my feet tilted. I grabbed Mark, and pulled him back onto the step, watching in horror as two more tendrils slid through the widening cracks between the stones. I ran further up the step when they all slid in our direction.

  Mark screamed out, and I gasped at the sight of another thin vine wrapping around his ankle. I viciously slammed my boot on it, gritting my teeth as the shock of hitting the stone shot through my leg. I jumped up, and landed both feet on it, shouting out in triumph as my weight managed to sever the vine. The injured organism retreated.

  “What are we going to do now?”

  “We go back, like we said,” I replied.

  Mark grabbed my arms, and twisted my body around.

  “Guess again!”

  Our way was completely blocked by a huge column of writhing red roots growing out of the cracked concrete floor. I jerked my hand to the left, saw the one open door, and ran through it. Mark pushed me even further inside, and slammed the door. It took great restraint not to break out in a hysterical fit of laughter when he pushed the bolt across, as if that would stop it.

  “You have got to be having a laugh,” muttered Mark, pushing past me and walking further into the shop.

  I turned my head and gaped. This time I did have to slap my hand over my mouth. We had both ended up in the model shop. I caught up with Mark, finding that these familiar walls started to have a calming effect upon my body as long as I didn’t look behind me, or dwell upon our apparent dire circumstances.