Scorched Flesh

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by Ian Woodhead


  He shrugged. “Yeah, a great analogy, worthy of fucking Buddha. Since when did a fucking privet hedge melt you?”

  “Yeah, I know that, Harry. You just don’t get it do you?” I risked a look over my shoulder, looking for any sign of activity. “We struck a blow to the mighty aliens by killing a thing that was once one of us. It’s okay, I’ve gotten over the fact that we have no choice. What has fucked me off here is that not only was it pointless, the idiots did it on our own fucking doorstep!”

  “Wait, maybe they didn’t do it?” said Harry. “It might have blown up all by itself? We won’t know until we get home.”

  “Are you going to shoot me with that?”

  He looked down at the shotgun, and quickly lowered it. “Hell, no. Wait, why the fuck did you drop it in the first place?”

  I took my hand away from the knife that I’d stuffed into the back of my jeans. “Well, it was a tense situation. It just seemed like the best idea.” Would he buy that? More to the point, would I have gone through with killing the fucker if his fingers had tightened? I already knew the answer to that one. Sure I would. After all, it would have been self-defence, him or me. Anyone would have seen that.

  He offered the gun back to me. I shook my head. “No, you might as well keep hold of it now. I don’t think we’ll be bumping into any opposition now.”

  Harry walked past me. “I don’t care what you think, if it was one of our lads that did it, I still intend to shake his hand. It’s one less bastard to worry about.”

  In the two months that I’d know this idiot, my feelings towards him had alternated between annoyance and downright revulsion. Killing him would have been a mercy, as well as potentially saving the future lives of our small unit of survivors and converted. I think Stu’s training had changed me after all. Maybe not for the better either. After all, if Stu had seen Harry as a threat, he would have put him down himself.

  I watched him swagger across the road, as per usual, and the big fool wasn’t looking for danger. Oh, no, he’d be too busy composing his congratulations for whichever arsehole took out that Black Sentinel. “Harry, you’re going the wrong way!”

  He stopped. His face was a medley of conflicting emotions, mainly confusion. I turned, and hurried over to the fallen Black Sentinel, my knife gripped tight in my left hand. I heard his heavy footsteps behind me, and slowed down. I didn’t think he’d leave me. His nosiness eclipsed even his cowardice. I held my breath once I’d reached the remains. I had forgotten just how bad these things smelled.

  “What are you doing? Travis, it’s dead. Even I can see that.”

  “Do you think I’d be standing right next to it if it wasn’t dead, you clown?”

  “So what are you doing?”

  “Making the most of a bad situation.” I hadn’t been on the poultry dissection line all that often. I usually ended up either on mixing or sorting. Even so, I haven’t forgotten what they showed me. Now I intended to put my skills into practice.

  It hadn’t self detonated. That much was obvious, just by looking at the bits of melted metal sticking out of two of its spindly legs. This had to be the work of one of the converted, it had to be. Ingrid and her dad had no knowledge of bomb making. I chuckled to myself, wondering if Harry would still congratulate the perpetrator. I hated the converted more than he hated the Black Sentinels. It could make for an interesting conversation. Christ, it made me wish that I was back on the other side of Lorchester, trying to find a way through the alien’s spire forest. At least it kept my mind occupied, even if I did have this bumbling dork next to me for the past three days. The news of not being able to find any way through was not going to go down well with the others. Especially since we had all agreed that Stu had somehow found a way through. After all, that’s where he said he was going, stating that we needed to join up with others, and that meant moving out of our town. It all sounded like a grand idea, one that we all shared. Only, since the spire forest grew overnight on the third day, travel was impossible, at least out of town. The spire forest had potent defences. Three huge blood trees had moved from their original locations, and had taken root on the borders.

  I didn’t want to bring bad news to the unit. I had enough trouble believing it myself, as it meant that Stu was probably dead. The thought of that filled me with dread. What if he was now a humanlike? We all knew that they retained the knowledge of their past. All the ones we’d caught and converted back remembered everything. That meant the aliens knew exactly where we were; hell, it meant they knew everything about us. No, I refused to bring back just bad news.

  The Black Sentinel’s middle section now looked like a rotten watermelon, and it had fallen on one of its weapons, crushing it under the weight. The other one looked okay though. I eyed the black ropes wearily, it would do no good to rush this. Even so, I was eager to get this over and done with. I stopped and picked up half a brick and threw it. The missile landed inside the creature’s cavity with a dull splash.

  “Best get this over with.” I approached the corpse and leaned over it, trying the work out where to make the first insertion. This was so reckless. If I got this wrong, if I accidently hit a pocket of volatile liquid when I cut, I could very well end up blowing myself and Harry into the middle of next week.

  I pushed the tip of the blade into what looked like a join behind the bulge that encircled the top of the limb. The metal sank in easily enough. With a swift rocking motion, I slid the knife all the way around the black flesh.

  “That is fucking gross.”

  I could only nod in agreement. It didn’t stop me from continuing though. Once I’d cut a deep V around the limb, I jumped back in shock as the flesh on both sides pressed inward, sealing the edges against what looked like a dark red bone. I couldn’t believe it, the weapon was almost separate. All that stopped me from removing the limb was that one obstacle. I tapped the tip of my knife on the surface, and sighed heavily. There’s no way that I’d be able to cut through that. I’d need a saw.

  “Move out of the way, Travis.” He didn’t wait for me to shift, the man just pushed me to the side, and raised his shotgun.”

  “No, don’t be an idiot!” I shouted.

  The man squeezed the trigger. I closed my eyes and rolled into a ball, expecting the blast to hit something explosive.

  “Here you go, Travis.” He held the weapon out in front of him, “You can thank me in your own good time.”

  I gingerly took it off him, trying to avoid getting the thick black slob leaking out of the end on my clothes.

  “Nice one. I never though of using their weapons against one. You’re not as green as your cabbage looking, son. Now, if only we can find out how it works. I wonder if any of the converted will be able to help us.”

  The man had done it. For the first time since meeting him, he’d managed to surprise me. “Want to swap?” I held out the dripping gun, watching with amusement as he eagerly handed over his shotgun.

  “Judging from the way it self sealed, the accelerant is either stored inside the limb, or it is the mechanism to produce the stuff that’s in here.” He looked at the remains of the Black Sentinel before looking back at me. “I wouldn’t have shot at it if I thought there were any chance of it exploding, you know. Yeah, that’s it. It has to be modular; keeping the stuff in the main body would be suicidal.”

  “Wait, you actually sound as though you know what you’re talking about.”

  He laughed. “I’m not just a pretty face, you know.”

  “But you’re just a bricklayer.”

  “I did that to earn money, and I was good at it too. I didn’t lay bricks in my spare time, you know. My love was my vintage American street car. You won’t believe how much time and money I spent on it.”

  This was just unreal. In all the time I knew him, he never once mentioned anything about this. For one moment, I wondered if he was making it up, until I remembered that Mark kept his hobby a secret from me for years.

  “It’s been my project for
at least seven years. It was almost done as well.” He sighed. “Not that it matters now. It’s not like I’ll ever see it again.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why do you think, dickhead? I don’t live in your shitty town. I was only here for Ingrid’s birthday.” He looked back at the huge spire forest. “Let’s be real here, Travis. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Come on, Harry, let’s go see which joker had the bright idea of planting a bomb on it.”

  ***

  Would it surprise you if I said that none of them in the base had a single clue of what I was talking about? Two of the converted even thought I was joking. That line of humour soon vanished when Harry walked in, holding the Black Sentinel’s gun.

  It shocked the hell out of me, as I believed them, even the new ones; after all, nobody would have been able to leave the safety of the compound without either Ingrid or her father from knowing, and besides, as Ingrid correctly pointed out, just where would any of them find the parts to build a bomb? It left us with just one conclusion, that we weren’t alone in town; there had to be another group operating in Lorchester.

  They took the news about being unable to get out with the predicted despair. There was nothing else I could offer but shrugs and apologies, as well as promising to try again as soon as it got light. The only one who objected to that idea was Ingrid, and I wasn’t all that keen on going back out again, but what else could I do? Stu was right, we did need to find others. Although the thought that there could be another group of survivors battling against the invaders did bring some light to the increasing darkness, it just wasn’t enough.

  As well as the six of us, minus Stu, we now had grown to ten. Our four new recruits were all converted, just like Mark. It had been Stu’s last gift before setting out in search of more like us.

  Unlike Harry, he had always believed that they could be saved, that the humanlikes were not that different than us. Looking back, I have often asked myself if the test that he set for me in that grocery shop was more for the attacking humanlike than it was for me; testing its responses, seeing if it really would go through with killing me. I shudder to think of what really had been going through Stu’s mind if that had been the case.

  He certainly had no problems with experimenting. After all, he’d only been able to free the others because of his experiments with Mark. Stu had told me that if the others had found another humanlike in that photo shop, then he would have taken that one as his guinea pig, and even if Mark had been with the crowd, Stu wouldn’t have tried to save him.

  If I hadn’t been so fucked up back in the early days, I might have had something to say about how he treated Mark. Back then, though, my thoughts were only for Ingrid. Stu was no fool. He knew exactly what I needed.

  I didn’t know how Stu brought those poor people out of their own nightmares, he refused to let anyone see. Even I wasn’t allowed to watch him work. I remember the screams, though, and yet they weren’t the worst noises to come out of that shed of his. Even after everything I’ve seen and heard, those sounds still haunt my dreams. Perhaps he had good reason to keep what he did under wraps.

  A tied up humanlike went in and a converted, as well as a metal bucket full of wet, black bits of legs and body, came back out. The only one who hadn’t been taken into Stu’s shed had been Mark.

  He hadn’t taken Mark into the shed because he didn’t want him totally clear. He’d left some of that vile creature inside Mark. A few days after we had re-joined the unit, I found out exactly why.

  ***

  I ran for the open doorway, my tired legs struggling to find purchase in the wed mud. It was right there, just metres from me, and yet I just knew that I wouldn’t be able to reach it in time. Already, I could hear the five Black Sentinels striding through our base, each one taking different routes through the tunnels.

  We thought we’d be safe down here. I mean, how would any of them be able to get us if they couldn’t even get inside?

  Lorchester council’s abandoned nuclear bunker was perfect for us. Situated directly under the main municipal buildings and only accessible via two routes, we were able to sleep safely during the night, and explore as soon as the sun came up. The main way inside was a narrow passage leading from the back of the post office, through two solid steel doors, and then down to the bunker’s own steel door. The other was a single metal, spiral staircase located at the back of the place which led up into the town’s sewer system. How Stu knew about the place, well, nobody bothered to ask him. What mattered was no matter what, we’d survive. Oh, we took extra precautions. Harry and Josh devised a tripwire system, and if anything other than us tried to get in through the entrance, several huge baths of wet mud would drop onto the sloping corridor. We knew that the Black Sentinels were agile, but even their thin legs wouldn’t be able to cope with that.

  We thought we were so fucking clever, able to outwit them at every turn. My feet lost their grip, and I fell into the mud. I flailed out both arms, desperately trying to grab the metal railing. I had no chance, they were just too far away. I slipped down the tiles, heading straight for the mouth of Hades.

  “Travis, catch!”

  I cried out in pain as the end of a rope smacked into my cheek. My hands instinctively wrapped themselves around it, I looped them tight, and hung on for dear life as both Joshua and Harry pulled my exhausted body up the corridor. I only screamed when I saw one of those abominations duck their torso under the doorway at the bottom, followed by the inevitable sound of that dreadful whistling. This was it, I wouldn’t stand a chance. That thing would melt myself and the two above me, fusing our bodies into the walls. My scream only increased when I felt the hair on the top of my head sizzle. I pushed myself into the mud and rolled onto my back, watching in horror as a burst of green flame passed inches above me—only the weapon fire wasn’t from the Black Sentinel.

  A pair of hands grabbed my wrists, and pulled me out of the thick mud.

  “We need to hurry,” gasped Joshua. “There’s dozens of the bastards heading this way.”

  I stopped and stared at Harry, blinking rapidly. He’d saved me. I looked down in disbelief at the bean gun held in his right hand. The nozzle leaked dark green jelly onto the floor, each drop eating into the concrete. “I owe you my life.”

  He just shrugged and pushed past me, running towards Joshua and the others. I stood there, trying not to cry. I risked one glance back down the corridor before following them. I’d mourn for the ones we had lost later on—if there was a later on. If Joshua’s reports were correct, our chances of surviving until the sun came up were very slim. Even from here, I could see the vast black belt of sentinels, closing in on our position, tightening the noose.

  We were right about the corridor, it did stop the things from getting to us, and believe me, they tried for hours before adopting a new strategy. The bastards simply melted their way through the concrete. Unbelievably, the bunkers had been built to withstand a nuclear airstrike, but didn’t stand a chance against those beam weapons.

  All of the others had run into a department store on the other side of the road. I followed them inside, just hoping one of them had figured a way to get us out of this mess.

  “Here, take this,” said Joshua, placing a torch in my hand.

  “What the fuck are we going to do now?” I hurried over to a window, watching flames leap from our old base.

  “Perhaps they’ll think we have all perished in there, and stop searching for us?” suggested Joshua.

  We both knew that was unlikely. I looked at him. “You know what I mean, Joshua. I’m talking about Ingrid and Mark.”

  The man simply shrugged, turned around, and walked over to Harry.

  I gaped at the man. This was unbelievable, didn’t he care that little about his only daughter? “They are still alive, you must know that?” I shouted. “Are you that ready to give up?”

  Harry ran over to me. “What’s gotten into you? For crying out loud, can’t you see that the man
’s broken?” He looked over to the door. “Perhaps you’d better go.” He began to raise the gun. “It’s probably your best choice. Let us grieve in peace before those bastard things try to murder the rest of us.” He backed away, keeping the muzzle of that alien weapon trained on me. “No more warnings, Travis. I’d rather not, but I will kill you if you don’t leave us in peace.”

  What else could I do, but to get out of there? I didn’t think he would have killed me, but after tonight’s traumatic events, I couldn’t be sure of anything anymore. I stared at the flames reaching up into the night sky. It felt like I was back to where it all started. Only this time, I wasn’t going to wake up and find a friendly vagrant offering me a bacon sandwich. For the first time since this fucking nightmare descended upon my head, I was truly alone.

  The orange flames were joined by two, then three bright green flares. Oh no! Those Black Sentinels must have flushed out a few more hidden humans. They were going to exterminate every one of us, and there was nothing we could do about it.

  I clambered onto the bonnet of a car. There must thousands of them closing in. There was no way out of this, none at all. The circle was solid. They were taking their time, obviously not taking any chances this time. The bastards were determined to murder every single one of us. I had to shield my eyes when two more green flares briefly turned the darkness into daytime.

  “I salute you, my fallen comrades,” I muttered. That happened close to the Black Swan. I frowned. Since when were there any people over there? We searched that place a few days ago. We found no evidence of activity. Not that it mattered, not now. I just hoped that they gave as good as they received. Just before the light faded, I did see something that I hadn’t expected. The line wasn’t as tight as I first believed. It looked as though the things were avoiding a tiny area. From what I could make out, it was close to the field where Mark and I first encountered the mushroom eggs. Could it be a way out?

 

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