by Greg James
Being talked at, at a constant pay-the-bills rate, by caring professionals until she would cave in and scream a “Yes!” to whatever diagnosis they proposed and, each time she saw them, the diagnosis changed and then so did her prescription and subsequently so did the patterns of her mood and behaviour, never for the better. There were bright patches but there were many dark holes torn in the skin of her life by the interfering hands of well-meaning but ignorant others. Whenever she reached for brightness and light herself, to illuminate the dingy corners of her persisting insomniac twilight, darkness always fell.
So, with ECT, they tried frying her brains to the point that she no longer cared. She would sit in her room afterwards, with the duty nurse peering in on her minute after minute; on suicide watch wondering why ECT was thought to be inhumane. In its own way, it stopped the pain, and a lobotomy, that would kill the pain altogether. Diagnosis after diagnosis just left you sinking ever deeper into the mire; living a life without ground, no foundation, a life out of which nothing could be made.
A life that sucked you dry.
Then, one morning, she woke up and she was fine. This had happened before, it meant that her brain had settled, filing away all the damage, depression and violence for another day. This was the high-point of the cycle that circumscribed her life. In time, she would descend again; plummeting towards the low-point once more. Was this it, already, so soon? Had she finally become so lost in the darkness that she could no longer see the world as it truly was?
The shape rose up before her, coming out of the shadows, peeling away from them as a scab coming free from flesh. It was the skin of a man without anything inside; no skeleton, no muscles, no organs or teeth, no tongue, no eyes. The lolling orifices in its fluttering face looked like holes torn in wet paper and the lips of the mouth were making damp kissing sounds as it came drifting towards her, its cured texture scraping over tarmac and pavement. “Won’t you stay awhile, my sweet, and watch this dead skin dance?”
Marie heard the rustling, the crackling, as more and more were showing themselves, flowing over front lawns, rustling through bushes, nursery windows spilling out frail child-skins mewling like crucified cats.
“Give us your meat. We’ll kiss it from your bones. Peel you so softly so you may sing with us as this and other worlds die. Give us your meat, my sweet. Let us suckyoudry!”
Their grasping hands tickled lightly through the air before her. She could see the hollows of scars on their faces. She could see into the wet pits of their eyeholes, see the skin there quivering, twitching, aching to reach inside her and draw out red, dripping meat.
“Suckyoudry-suckyoudry-suckyoudry!”
Marie fled.
Which way? Which way?
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
The crackling horde of skins was at her heels and everywhere else, so it seemed. Their palsied faces hanging in the air, lips and eyeholes fluttering wherever she looked. Her legs were hurting from running and her lungs were scorching pockets, barely able to hold more than a mouthful of air. The windows kept shining and pulsing and the skins kept roaming after her through the shadows.
Where can I go?
Where can I hide?
Is there nowhere safe left for me?
There were so many of them. She could see some creeping over rooftops; others slithering out of chimneys and alleyways. They would catch her soon and she would be sucked dry by their dreadful lips before she could wet her throat enough to cry out. The scream punctured the city's polluted ether as a flare burst brilliantly overhead. Another followed its trajectory, creating a further chorus of shrieks and wails. The skins hissed and spat at the phosphorus giving light to their night-time world. It would not last for long, just long enough to seriously piss them off. Blinking, shielding her eyes, Marie looked for the source of the flares.
A hand grabbed her arm. “Come with me, quick, I have one more flare, that’s all, and we’re going to need it.”
Marie could make out that her saviour was a young woman as dark-skinned as she was fair. “Where are we going?”
“Somewhere safe.”
With those words, she stopped, turned and ignited the last flare, shooting it high and far and not a moment too soon. The skins were swarming after them, an undulating tide of near-white flaccidity. The flare ditched into the middle of the hissing mass, igniting dry hides, turning them into shrieking, guttering, greasy torches. A smile crossed her saviour’s face. Marie saw something appearing out of the gloom; powder blue, trimmed with rust and a fading beige rainbow adorning one side.
“That’s an ice-cream van!”
As they shut the doors, the woman pressed a button on the van’s dashboard and a tinny rendition of the theme to High Noon chimed out.
“Listen.” The howls of the skins echoed from every direction. “Bright light and this sound. They hate it. Don't know why but they do.”
Both women slumped down into the van's interior, exhausted.
“We’ll be okay in here. For a while. Cornetto?”
Marie was struck dumb by the question. After everything that had happened, it was the last thing she had expected to be asked.
“Strawberry, thank you. What’s your name?”
“Amanda. Here you go. Strawberry.”
As they finished their Cornettos, from the rear door of the van came a familiar rustling. High Noon chimed out loud and clear once more, sending the skin scurrying away, screeching.
“We’ll go mad listening to that and them.”
Amanda licked the last pieces of chocolate from her lips and smiled coldly.
“Better that than stay sane.”
“We can't be the only people left,” Marie said, “has this thing got any petrol in it?”
Amanda shrugged, “Dunno. It's shelter, that's all I was looking for to start with and the more noise you make, the more skins come after you.”
“We can drive. Get away from here. Look for survivors.”
Amanda hauled herself to her feet and clambered forwards into the driver’s seat, “You do realise that when we start this thing, the skins are going to swarm, right?”
“I do realise that, yes. Let’s go.”
“Aye-aye, cap’n.”
Amanda let the clutch go, pushed in the ignition key and turned it. The engine of the old ice cream van juddered into life. Marie smiled at Amanda and Amanda smiled back, this time the smile was warmer.
The ice cream van clattered along the streets, bald tires slip-sliding across tarmac, the hubcaps rattling, threatening to fall off and roll away. The wheels occasionally found traction as they ran over a stray skin, catching it and grinding it down into dead cells.
Marie’s heart thumped with satisfaction each time that happened. The headlights of the van had been smashed in long ago so Amanda drove along at an even twenty, slow enough to keep an eye out for signs of life but fast enough to frustrate the skins.
In the rear-view mirror, Marie could see the fluttering moth-like scramble of many skins, they were steadily growing in number and she could hear them chanting their perverse mantra.
“Suckyoudry-suckyoudry-suckyoudry!”
She could feel the hairs on her own skin prickling at the sound made by those croaking throats.
“There! There! Look, over there!” Amanda shouted.
Marie saw it, a light; pure electric light emanating from a window.
The closer they came to it and the closer the skins came to them. It was coming from the windows of a shop, a small cornershop, the light seeping out around faded posters and tattered card displays. Marie glimpsed brightly-coloured prozzie cards and felt-tip pen scrawls advertising garden fetes, flats for rent and car boot sales as she stopped the van. The skins were so close.
Marie took her hand and they opened the van door together.
*
Marie was shaking at the door, banging on it, shouting through the glowing glass – it was locked. Looking back, she saw the skins swarming over one another, a cannibalisti
c tumult of empty, whispering sacking. Wizened mouths and eye-holes muttering constantly, starving and yawning.
“Suckyoudry-suckyoudry-suckyoudry!”
So close she could see their beaten scars, weathered tattoos and beauty spots - the markings of all the people that the skins had once been. Marie felt a hand on her shoulder draw her away from the door.
Amanda smiled, winked and hefted the crowbar. “Under the passenger seat, just what we need.”
She braced it against the door frame, wedging it into the slit of space there.
“Come t’us, let us eat you up, chubby-chubby tits!”
There was a crunch, a crack and the door opened. A tiny bell jingled, making the skins wither in on themselves, retreat and cry out, flailing at the meat escaping them. Inside the shop, Amanda slid the bolts hard across. Marie slid two hefty boxes across the floor from under the counter and jammed them up against the door.
“I had to break the lock.”
Marie nodded, “I know, but this should keep them out.”
“For a while. We need to be quick and see if anyone is in here.”
“They must be. The light - it's the only normal one we've seen.”
“Perhaps but I don't trust this world, the way it is now.”
“Did you trust it the way it was before?”
“True, you're right. Let's check the upstairs. They could be hiding.”
Something could be hiding, thought Marie, but she didn't say that out loud.
The shop itself was stacked from floor to ceiling with shelving. There were two parallel aisles that you could get down if you kept your arms flat by your sides. Bottles, tins, cans and jars teetered in the corners. There was everything in here you could want as long as you didn’t mind processed food.
This is an organic produce freak’s nightmare, Marie thought.
At the back of the shop, there was an open doorway, lengths of yellowed plastic tape hung down across it. They fluttered, scraping over one another. Behind the hanging tape was darkness. They could smell breadcrumbs on raw meat and hear the dull, unvarying hum of fridges. Marie raised a hand to reach in, to fumble for a light switch. The tongues of tape snapped at her, crackling like a corpse’s vocal cords. Amanda reached forward, retrieving Marie’s hand then, kissing it on the knuckles gently.
“Let me go first.”
Through the storeroom, they came to the stairs that led to a small flat over the shop. The door was open, handle shattered and lock splintered. The shadows and shapes beyond, barely resolving, creaked and sighed as the two women approached. A band of light sliced through the gloom of the flat, slipping through the crack of a further door within. Through one door and then another to reach the light, thought Marie, very deep.
The flat smelled of boiled vegetables, spilt sulphur and the walls were plastered over with old stains. They came to the door through which the light was shining, the light that led them to this place. It was as patched with mould and marked by decay as the rest of the domicile. Amanda let her palm rest against the surface of the painted wood and Marie did the same, feeling a sensation that was neither heat, nor static but something else, utterly weird.
She pushed the door, let it swing in slow; revealing the room that like the Pharos of Alexandria had led them here. It was then that the suited figure in the threadbare armchair rose to its feet and turned to face them, trailing long strips of yellowed cloth that clung to its face. Cataract-bright eyes blindly stared and a mouth without lips or teeth wetly gnawed at the empty air.
The man was dead, his skull bludgeoned in. Amanda stood over him, wiping scabs of brain from the crowbar onto her sleeve. Her brow was pebbled with a cold and oily sheen of sweat. Marie knelt down by the body, tentative fingers reaching for the mask of tattered cloth, peeling it back to reveal a skinless patch of the man's face.
“Jesus!” said Amanda.
“It's like one of the skins, this thing on his face, like he wanted to be one of them.”
Amanda gagged, “So much that he cut the skin off from his own face? Urgh. Let's go.”
As they left the Pharos room, Marie cast a look back at the dead man, bit at her lip and then she turned out the light, leaving him to rot in the dark.
Amanda was looking out through the gaps in the shop's window display, checking on the skins. They were still there, drifting around, scrabbling about.
We’re the only fresh food left, after all, she thought.
“So, what do we do now then?” Marie asked.
“Stay here.”
“Like you did in the van?”
“Like I did in the van.”
“But that means we’ve just gone from square one to square one.”
“Yep.”
“I thought the plan was to get out.”
“That was the plan if we found some other people and if we then had numbers on our side. We have neither.”
“We should still do something. We can’t just sit here.”
Then, Amanda was hugging her so tight that it hurt her ribs. Then, she was kissing her and, for a moment, Marie held back. Then, she was easing, relaxing, melting a little, she let the kiss go on.
Why am I doing this? Letting this happen?
But it was too late for thinking.
Marie squirmed as Amanda’s fingers penetrated her, working at soft velvet and silken folds until they were wet, wriggling and turning them as Wendy’s muscles sucked hard on her knuckles. She ran the grain of each of her fingertips over the bud nestled there, coaxing it, teasing it until Marie smiled and her muscles became a strangling ring, pinching at the roots of Amanda's fingers. Then, she was giving in, giving way, running over with a warm wash of slickness and Amanda withdrew her fingers, licking some of the shimmering deposits from it.
“Y'know, you taste good.”
She let Marie lick away the rest and then they slept together.
*
It was the scratching that woke her. Shrugging off slumber, Amanda uncurled from around Marie. Marie snorted in her sleep, mumbling a little, Amanda’s departure disturbing her. Then Marie came to because Amanda was shaking her hard.
“The glass! The skins’re breaking through the glass!”
Marie was on her feet slithering, sleepy-eyed, down the aisle towards the shop front. The great panes of glass were grinding and grating, coming loose, cards and paper adverts scattering across the floor. The glass shook violently. Tins fell from shelves; denting, splitting, spilling their contents, creating processed puddles of pease pudding, soggy grains and beans. The glass was not going to hold out much longer. Great cracks were spreading across it and the skins outside were exulting, letting out triumphant shrieks. They would be in the shop soon. Marie could hear them, muttering, chittering and rustling amongst themselves, deciding on the one they would bring down, suck dry and pick clean.
“We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Where though?” asked Amanda.
“The back way, through the store room, it's the only way out of here.”
Into the blacked-out storeroom, crossing that threshold of long, licking plastic tongues once more.
Krakt!
A spidering web of white was spreading across one of the glass panes. They could both hear the creak and crack of perished fingernails gaining purchase. Amanda snatched up Marie’s hand and dragged her along to the storeroom's portal. Its shadows were waiting for them, through that hanging yellow fringe. The corpse was still upstairs, Marie saw it rising behind her eyes as the strips of yellow were hanging down, fluttering, beckoning before her eyes. She pushed the rattling plastic aside, plunging in as she heard glass crashing to the ground.
The skins were in. There were no choices left.
Over the shelves, through the aisles, around the counters came the skins. The gristled holes of their nostrils snuffling and snorting; picking up the scent of the fresh meat they had stalked here.
“comeout-comeout-whereveryouare!”
Sagging lips tore on the ja
gged edges of broken tins, tasting tomato sauce, wishing it were blood.
“Littlegirls-littlegirls you-cannothide-forever!”
Rustling towards the rear of the shop, the skins felt a chill hurry over them, noticing a rustling that was very like their own.
“Suckyoudry-suckyoudry-suckyoudry!”
The plastic lengths masking the doorway rattled at them, threatening them. The skins caterpillared closer to the snap-cracking yellow strips. The skins hissed at them, it was the sound of sandpaper being drawn down hard over itself, they spat into the noisome dark, into the portal where their meal had fled, where they could not follow.
“They’re not coming in!” crowed Marie, “They’re not coming in after us, Amanda.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Well, we’re safe then, aren’t we?”
Amanda shook her head, knowing Marie couldn’t see it, there, in the dark, not yet.
“Yeah, they’re not coming in. You know why they’re not coming in?”
Marie went quiet, she heard it move, breathing.
“We’re not alone in here, Marie.”
Marie was listening to the sound, tracing its location by echo because it was not coming from the humming fridges. It was coming from right behind her. A heavy hand fell on her shoulder and a stale powder pattered into her hair. Marie pulled away and turned around. It was one of them, a thing from her dream. Its strange skinless flesh was not truly flesh but another substance altogether flowing and shimmering in time with the stilted breaths that issued from a mouth that had rotted away to become an oscillating cystic hole lined with the flaking nubs of what once were teeth. It lunged forwards; dead fingers snagging in Marie’s hair as they did before, pulling her towards it. She swatted at the tightening knuckles, trying to twist around, to bite. It was no use. It drew her into a last embrace, into a kiss that tasted of bitter nightshade and prickling soft nettles. Fingers hooked in between her skin and her flesh, stripping one from the other. The pain was not immediate, it came slow and crawling, following the unpeeling pathways being created, laying bare the brawn of the meat, then the blood and the bones. Marie heard a sad and lonely cry, and she knew it was her own.