Scorched Flesh

by Ian Woodhead

  I turned away and lay on my back, wanting to see stars, but only seeing millions of black triangles. Hope was the last thing I felt. I closed my eyes just as Mark began to start his chanting again.

  Managing to get past the shock of not being dead, I shuffled into a sitting position, placing the quilt cover that I used as a pillow over my legs.

  “Good to see you’re awake, young Fitzpatrick. Come on over, and formally introduce yourself.”

  The others were sat around the smouldering embers of the fire. I was the only one missing. Even Mark was there, although he wasn’t taking part in their conversation on account of him being trussed up like a supermarket chicken. They’d even gagged him. I looked into his eyes, hoping to see recognition, perhaps a silent cry for help. I saw nothing in there but my own reflection. I’d never felt so alone.

  “Notice the blue sky?” asked the girl. She uncrossed her legs, and walked over to me. I felt a little uncomfortable in her presence, considering how our first meeting went. She bent down, grabbed my hand, and pulled me to my feet.

  “Looks like we’ll live for another day.” She turned her head. “As your strange pal says, we got the six numbers again.” The girl pulled me over to the fire. “I’m Ingrid, and this is my dad, Joshua.”

  The truck driver stood up, and shook my hand. “I can’t tell you how thankful I am to find others.” He looked down at the other man, the head shaker. “This is Harry Cray. He’s a family friend.”

  They both sat back down, and I followed suit, noting that this Harry Cray bloke hadn’t taken his eyes off me. Stu looked over at me.

  “Blue sky, Travis. I’m a little shocked.”

  I nodded. “You’re not the only one. Where have all the ships gone?”

  “Oh, dear, you see, this is what happens when you oversleep, and join in to the middle of a conversation. Blue sky, Travis!” He rolled his eyes. “It’s Monday, it’s supposed to be pissing down, or at least dull and cloudy. Is that not how you workers see Monday morning? The start of the working week. Yet another five days of drudgery” He looked at his watch. “By the way, you’re late for work. How am I supposed to steal my microwave chicken dinner if you’re not making them anymore?”

  Even the head shaker cracked a smile. I had no inclination to do anything but sigh. I couldn’t stop glancing over at Mark and wonder exactly what Stu was up to. I’d learned a lot of the man yesterday. The most important lesson had been that he never did anything without a bloody good reason. That included his words as well, no matter how irrelevant they sounded. If the others live through the next few days, perhaps they might understand this too.

  “To answer your question, Travis?” Stu used a pair of metal tongs to pull a foil package out of the red ashes. He gingerly dropped it on the saucer he gave me yesterday, and unwrapped it. The smell of cooked fish caressed my nostrils. “I thought you might be hungry.” He leaned over the fire, and handed me the plate, along with a fork. “To impress the natives, our colonial ancestors used a variety of tricks, everything from fireworks to taking their pictures. It’s by the book tactics. If you can break the spirit of your potential enemy, then half the battle is won. I believe that our invaders are using exactly the same tactics. What if there were only about a dozen ships in the sky last night. Each one stationed in fixed orbit over certain locations across the globe, and the ones that we saw were just holographic copies of them. Maybe even just shells, dummy ships.”

  Harry snorted. “That’s bullshit.”

  “No, wait on, Harry. Don’t you remember that documentary we saw a few weeks ago, about the army building a load of cardboard tanks to fool the Germans during the Second World War?” Joshua gazed at Stu. “It’s the same thing, isn’t it?”

  Ingrid’s thigh was pressed tight against mine. I ate my hot fish, feeling the pleasure from the food as well as the pleasure from the girl’s proximity. Right at that moment, I didn’t care if her actions were intentional. As Stu had said to me yesterday, enjoy the moment, as none of us knew exactly what lay around the corner. I took my eyes off the fish laden fork to see Stu reaching behind him to pull out two shotguns. I might not know exactly what lay around the next corner, but the scruffy man opposite me at least had a good idea. He never ceased to amaze me. How the hell had he ended up living out of fucking dustbins?

  “I thought I heard somebody moving about last night.” Harry glared at Mark. “If I’d known you had gone for a wander, I would have put that thing out of its misery.”

  All jollity drained from the camp. I slowly put the full fork back on the plate, and began to stand up. I didn’t care that he was twice my size and age. My movement stopped when Ingrid gripped my wrist and pulled me back down. “Leave it!” she hissed.

  “My new dear friend, what is your trade?”

  Harry moved his glare to Stu. “What the fuck has that got to do with you?”

  Stu gave the man a most disarming smile. “Come on, just humour me, sir. I’m interested. I mean, of course, if you’re a government agent, then I can understand your reluctance to share.” He tapped an empty plate next to Harry’s ankle. “See it as a trade.”

  “I am…I was a bricklayer. Done the job since leaving school. I’m good at it too.”

  “I see. That’s a skilled and honourable trade, Harry, and I’m sure you are good at your job. Although I profess to only knowing the basics, I’m pretty sure that murdering another human being isn’t part of your skill set?”

  Harry jumped to his feet. “Are you taking the piss?”

  “For fuck’s sake, Harry, will you sit back down?!”

  The man shook his head. “Not a chance, Josh. This joker needs to know his place.”

  “Harry, for the last time, cool your jets, and sit back down. This guy saved our skins.” He looked at Stu. “You’re ex-army, that much I do know.”

  The girl picked up my fork, and placed it back into my hand. “You need to eat, Travis. Eat and stay quiet.” She turned my head, and placed a single kiss on my lips. “And keep watching.”

  Stu hadn’t moved a muscle since Harry had jumped up, his posture all set for bashing mode. “You’re a civilian, my friend. That status alone makes me envy you.” He sat up. “That envy reaches out to all of you. It isn’t just envy though. I feel pride. I feel love for you, Harry, and for all of you here. Call it job satisfaction. Because of what I did, none of you have had to kill another human.”

  I blinked, gaping at Stu. There were tears flowing down his face. Harry sat back down; he looked straight at the other man before staring down at his feet.

  “Taking another life was the hardest thing that I had to do, even with the gruelling training and the techniques they used to break up our moral centres.” He took a deep breath, and passed Harry one of the shotguns. “Here you go. Why don’t you try it? Travis did it a couple of nights ago. If he can do it, I’m sure you can. Don’t worry, it’s loaded. Go on, go kill Mark. It’ll be easier with this. There’ll be more mess, but less of a problem for you. It only takes slight pressure to pull the trigger. As I took your sword with me last night, you’ll have only been able to use your hands.” He placed his own hands around his throat. “Not the best way to murder somebody. I mean, can you imagine watching the light dying in their eyes as you squeeze the life out of them?”

  I felt the girl go rigid. Whatever she had expected Stu to do, I bet that this wasn’t it. His behaviour even made me uneasy, but at least I had some experience of his ways. The head shaker just sat there holding the gun as if it was a live snake. After a few moments, he handed it back to Stu.

  “Your magic time came and went whilst you were in that mall, Harry. Mark should have died at your hands there and then, in the heat of the moment.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t kill him,” I muttered.

  “So am I, my young Fitzpatrick, but not for the reason you believe.” Stu stowed the weapons back behind him. “Harry, that gun belongs to you now by the way.” He held up his hand when the man opened his mouth. “L
ater, sir.” Stu then nodded to Ingrid. “Okay, honey. As you were the first to awake, why don’t you show Travis what scared you so much, three hours ago.”

  She nodded, and took my hand. “Come on, you’ll want to see this.”

  Ingrid pulled me away from the comforting warmth, towards the two gates. I stopped her just before we reached the portacabin. Tiny splinters of painted wood were all that remained of the door. I looked back at where we slept, and found the back of Stu’s head. It didn’t make any sense. He knew that about the thing in there, not to mention the hundreds of trapped stalks in the cars on the jammed road.

  Just what made him feel that sleeping in the open air would be safer than finding refuge in a house? Ingrid tugged at my hand. “Don’t worry, we’ve already checked it out. There’s nothing in there but a pile of mouldy porn mags and a chipped mug. This is far more interesting.”

  My feet stumbled just before the pair of us got to the gates. I didn’t even notice. My gaze was elsewhere, at what had happened to the skyline. The rectangular blocks of Lorchester’s buildings were now dwarfed by the jaw-dropping sight behind them. As far as the eye could see, hundreds of towers reaching to the clouds now spanned the horizon. Some of them must have been at least a couple of miles high. They looked like gigantic stalagmites, or termite nests. Whatever they were, they sure as fuck weren’t natural. Could anything else happen to us? “I don’t think I can take any more of this, Ingrid. I want to wake up now. I think my mum is calling me down for breakfast.”

  “Stu says that we need to check them out. He also told me that I have to look after you.”

  “Pardon? Wait, rewind here.” I fixed my eyes on the now empty cars. I felt like I was sinking into thick mud. Yet, despite this, I welcomed the time when the slime covered over my head, flowing into my ears, up my nose, and into my mouth. At least I’d be free; I’d be out of the madness.

  “I thought I was going mad, Travis.” She sat down on a tractor. “Stu told me a little of what you went through this morning, and I’m really sorry about what happened at the mall. I don’t mean when we met each other, I mean the first time, when you went to look for your mum.”

  Ingrid looked back towards the three men. “It’s my birthday today, by the way.” Ingrid forced out a bitter laugh. “What a way to spend my birthday. That’s why we were at the mall. My mum took me there to look for a dress.”

  I sat beside her, and listened to the girl tell me what had happened to her, and I squeezed her hand gently when she relayed what the humanlikes had done to her mum when they caught her. She never said if Mark had been with them and I didn’t ask. In fact, I stayed silent. It seemed like the best option. When she got to her life, or should I say, the life before, I turned to watch Stu show the two men how to hold the shotguns.

  I only turned back when the girl asked me if she thought that we were all going to end up like everyone else; if we were all going to die. The picture of me drowning in mud surfaced once more, but this time, it changed. I saw the owner of that model shop falling forward, embracing death. “By rights, we should all have reached that state yesterday, or the day before.”

  “I suppose.” Ingrid put her arm around my waist, and rested her head on my shoulders. “You know something? I think I remember you from school. You were a couple of years above me though.”

  I ran my fingers through her soft hair, wondering what she looked like with no clothes on. I guessed that if Stu didn’t end up getting the pair of us killed today, I guess I’d find out tonight. That thought brought me no comfort, and for the life in me, I couldn’t explain why not. After all, the girl was incredibly beautiful. “Tell me what Stu thought those structures are, Ingrid.”

  The girl wrapped both her arms around me and leaned closer until our lips were almost touching. “I don’t want to die, Travis.” She sobbed. “I don’t want to go the same way as my mum. Promise me that you’ll look after me?”

  “Ingrid. I thought Stu told you to look after me, not the other way around.”

  She held me even tighter, and kissed me. I wanted to struggle, to push her away. I wasn’t ready for any of this. My mind was all over the place. But then what did my mind know about anything? My body wasn’t about to get in the way. When her fingers slid down my spine, I gave in and embraced her.

  ***

  Listen to me go on about fucking trivialities! The last thing you want to hear right now, son, is how you came into this soon to be sterilised world. No, you weren’t conceived there and then, right in front of Ingrid’s own bloody father. We were all confused, traumatised, and terrified of our futures, but we weren’t animals.

  I don’t have much time left, I can hear them climb through the ribbed corridors. Shit, I’ve wasted so much time. Listen to me, son. I thought that the only reason why we were able to escape turning into one of those stalks was because we ended up being covered by the fluid from those mushroom egg things. It wasn’t anything to do with them. Neither Ingrid, her father, nor Harry had any idea that they even existed.

  They had a natural immunity to whatever the bastards used to turn us. All the ones that lived through those hellish nights were exactly the same. Don’t you get it? You are looking for a solution in the wrong places. You won’t find anything in the remaining spires. There’s nothing in the humanlike infection labs, even the scattered tribes of the rogue fifth columns won’t be able to help you. The cure is inside you. You’re a product of the pairing of two whose bodies fought and won the alien takeover. You’re unique, the only one of your kind. The others, your fellow fighters, all have questionable parents. Don’t take offence here, you know it’s true. At least one of their parents was a humanlike, and that means they all carry tainted blood.

  I think that… Oh fuck, they’re here, they’re at the cell door, I need to stop this, I can’t allow them to find…

  End of part one.

  Part Two.

  My guts are spinning; they feel as though they’re inside a fucking washing machine. It’s only the desperation of needing every piece of energy I have that’s stopped me from throwing up my last meagre meal. The cell door slammed shut just a few moments ago, and I tell you now, it took great effort to wait until they had gone before I slid down the wall and let it all out.

  I don’t think my posture or expression betrayed my true intent when that foul thing dropped his little bombshell. Little bombshell? Ha! More like a planet busting nuclear detonation. Oh, God, and I thought the Black Sentinels were bad.

  After twenty five years of wanting to see the true face of the enemy, I have finally found out exactly what they now look like. I think I preferred it when I didn’t know. In fact, I know I do.

  I am so tired, and can you believe that after what I’ve just gone through, I want to go to sleep? It’s an action that I’m so trying to avoid. You see, when I do, I find the memory of their eyes running up and down my frail and filthy body filling my mental vision.

  I’m sorry, my son, but I’m not ready to describe them to you. I think it’ll take me a while for the shock to sink in, and therein lies the problem. You, see, I don’t think I have the luxury of time anymore. In fact, I know I don’t.

  As far as I know, I’m their last prisoner. Why they kept me imprisoned for so long is a mystery to me. Neither do I know why all the others on this prison ship weren’t human. I ran out of plausible explanations months ago. They have all gone, and I’m the last one.

  Will I be following the others out of the airlock? Now that is an intriguing question. That’s how all the others went. The procedure followed the same pattern.

  They took the prisoner from their cell, we all heard that. We heard the poor bastard screaming for mercy through the intercom systems. Thing is, I had no idea what any of them were saying. Most of the time, all I heard was a bunch of hisses, clicks, whistles. Oh, there was always the screaming though.

  None of us saw the execution, but we sure as fuck saw the body. Our guards flushed pieces out of the airlock. Some of the frozen c
hunks of leg, shell, torso, and head even bumped against our windows before Earth’s gravity claimed them.

  If there is nobody left, I might just get away with a quick death, unless they just flush me into space still breathing. After everything that those bastards have put me through whilst up here, I think that finding myself trying to breathe vacuum would be a kindness, and that word is definitely not in their vocabulary.

  I always knew that I was living on borrowed time. Now, though, I know this for a fact. They’ll be coming for me next. I’m not going to let them kill me, not a chance. Not after what I’ve just seen. I’m going to find some way out of here. I will escape, and get back down to the planet. This new knowledge will unite all of the rival factions; I think it’s the only thing that will.

  They were only in here for a minute at the most. I knew something was different as soon as the cell door slid open, and only two of them walked in. There was no sign of any Black Sentinel. That has never happened before. The two guards then removed their helmets, and took a blood sample. That’s it, they placed one of vile organic patches on my forearm, waited until the colour has changed from pale yellow to red, peeled it off, and left me with their revelation for company.

  The bastards didn’t even replace the pipes. Just as well, really, as it means that I can still talk. There’s still so much that I need to tell you; there’s so much knowledge locked inside my head that will help you fight them.

  I can’t stop shivering now. I guess the shock’s just kicked in. This place feels different now, and it’s not just the noises coming from God knows where, it’s the general feel of the place. I can’t say exactly what it is. Listen to me, babble on about irrelevant crap. It’s probably just my mind adapting to the thought of dying.

  The best thing for me is to continue talking. I’ll need to skip ahead, though, but not too far, and certainly not to the time when you came about. Just to another significant point about a month after they arrived; it might even be two months. It was so difficult keeping track of time. Sometimes the days seemed to last for weeks, and other times the days all merged into one mass segment of horror, death, and tragedy. It’s to the latter where I need to pick up the story