by Ian Woodhead
Then again, considering what she already discovered at this site, combined with their findings from the excavated town, why not aliens in Central America? Jeanette giggled to herself. Fuck it, why the hell should she be concerned about Glenda’s and Mark’s reaction, either they would accept the facts or they wouldn’t.
She dropped the spoon on the plate and climbed off the bed. Their views were likely to change sooner than that, if Ryan’s theory of what lay under the second dig at the end of the site bore fruition. Jeanette decided to take her camera to the gig in order to record the moment. Having their gobsmacked faces on celluloid would be almost as priceless as finding the bones.
The surprised faces, the impending discovering of the concrete evidence of non human intelligent life and the inevitable fallout can all wait until the morning. She padded across the soft carpet. Right now Jeanette needed her hunk to fuck her again.
The sound of the water grew louder as she pulled open the door to the bathroom. Her seductive smile slipped just a crack when goose bumps erupted over her body. She saw no steam. What the hell? Was the fool having a cold shower? Sod that, there was no way she’d step into that.
“Pedro, if you turn up the heat, I’ll join you.” She laughed. “I know you think you’re hot stuff but that is ridiculous.” Jeanette shivered. “Come on, it really is bloody cold in here.”
What the hell was is up to now? Why hadn’t he answered her? “Fine, be like that, see if I care.” She slammed the door shut and stormed over to the bed and grabbed her dressing gown. Jeanette tugged it on, remembering how, just an hour ago, Pedro had pulled it off her shoulders, before dropping to his knees, burying his face between her breasts, while his expert fingers teased apart the most intimate part of her anatomy. “Oh bugger,” she uttered.
Jeanette tied the cord and leaned against the wall. She shook her head in exasperation. The poor kid must think that playing these silly games was the best way to get her excited again. “Why has he not worked out that he doesn’t have to play this game?”
She looked back at their bed, following the impression of his body, made in the sheet. He hadn’t worked it out because despite his impressive performance and his absolutely delicious body, he still had the mind of a teenager. Christ, when she was his age, Pedro had only just worked out how to use the toilet.
“Pedro? Come on, love. I’m getting lonely out here.”
Jeanette couldn’t take this any longer; despite her chosen career, she’d never been the most patient of women, at least not when it came to men who ought to know better, playing silly games. She slammed her fists against the frosted glass door. “If you’re not out of there in ten seconds, buster, that’s it. I’m out of here. You know me, Pedro, I’m not kidding.”
She heard a muffled grunt followed by the shower stopping. “Yeah, you know who’s the boss, young man,” she muttered, standing back, and waiting for a sheepish young man to step out of the bathroom, dripping wet and full of apologies. Jeanette folded her arm across her chest to complete the look. Maybe she should punish him? A few slaps on that firm arse should stop him from misbehaving again.
The door slid back and her stern look dissolved into utter terror as a mass of wet, pulsating black flesh slivered out. Jeanette shrieked, she spun around and raced over to the bed, panting and moaning, her mind slipping from rationality into insanity as she
saw its reflection in the wardrobe mirror coming after her.
Something cold smacked her in the back of the neck. Jeanette dived onto the bed, rolled onto the other end and fell onto the carpet on the other side. The black mass had halted its progress. Jeanette slowly got to her feet, the dressing gown slipping off her body. She raised her hand and pressed her fingers against the back of her neck, frowning in confusion when her fingers encountered a dozen penny-sized disk shapes just under the skin.
Her panic and fear had begun to dissipate, leaving her feeling drained. She looked over at the black mass, watching the carpet around its body grow dark with moisture. It now funnelled its formless mass into a cylindrical shape, growing upwards until the material touched the ceiling. Jeanette found herself smiling as her own fingers grew wet, sinking into the back of her neck as her flesh began to transform. Jeanette walked around the bed and sat down, she held out both her arms, watching the tips of her fingers soften, and retreat, leaving her hands looking like two lumps of chewed toffee.
“It’s you, isn’t it, Pedro?”
Jeanette lay back on the bed and opened her legs and mouth, crying out in utter pleasure as the black shape directly above her head stretched its body until the base anchored itself on her stomach. She could no longer speak, or make any noise as her throat as well as her chest succumbed to the spreading fungal strain. The rest of the black mass dropped from the ceiling, the other end bifurcating like wilting flowers. The new stems slid over her flesh until each one found her two open orifices. The black mass eagerly pushed its own flesh inside the already changing woman.
***
Ethan Bell looked up in annoyance as the sound above his head increased yet again. He ground his teeth and picked up his metal pole. Enough was enough. Those dirty rabbits on the floor above were just taking the piss now. Just how many times can they have sex?
He climbed off the bed and smacked the end of the pole against the ceiling. This was just ridiculous, it shouldn’t be allowed. This was supposed to be a respectable hotel, not some cheap knocking shop.
The noise abruptly stopped. He nodded in satisfaction. Yeah, he thought that would stop them. He just wished he’d done that a lot earlier. He would have done too, if it hadn’t taken him so bloody long to wrench this damn pole out of the wardrobe.
Then again, it wasn’t his fault. Ethan idly scratched the back of his hand, not noticing the tiny black spikes that had pushed up through the flesh over an hour ago. He pushed the end of his fingers into his mouth, pulling off the last of his fingernails, before heading into the kitchen.
Now that those rampant kids had finally got the message, he could finally lie down and get rid of this damn headache. Ethan brushed passed the doorframe, not noticing a blanket of white fungus, left from his last trip into the kitchen, spreading up the wall.
His pole had made several deep indentions in the ceiling. Three of them had already filled with glutinous black goo, seeping down from the floor above. Just like the fungal strain raging through Ethan’s body, this event went unnoticed too.
6
Dodging the raindrops
Barry Newman’s father had called his son a complete idiot when the lad told him of his purchase. Barry had stood on the dark red kitchen lino, not saying a single word as the old man called him every derogatory name under the sun. Oh, he knew that his only living flesh and blood relative wouldn’t be too happy when he told the old man that he’d used half of his life savings to buy the old launderette across the road from Radfield hospital.
Even Barry’s wife, Kay, had been doubtful. Just like the wife though, Barry was confident that as soon as he’d explained his plans and shared Barry’s dream, the stubborn old goat would see the wisdom in his investment. Fat chance of that, he’d hadn’t even let him get a word in.
That fateful day twelve years ago spelled the end of their relationship as far as Barry was concerned. It took him another three years and the rest of their money to turn the derelict building into the most profitable sandwich shop in Radfield. He’d done it though, and without any financial help from his now dead father. The irony of his dad leaving the exact amount that Barry wanted to borrow from the old man in his will was not lost on him.
He leaned across the glass counter, watching a man and woman rush out of the hospital doors. Barry hoped they’d come in here. He so needed to feed. His appendages slid out from under his armoured shell and slid across the floor. With his sensors closer to the open door, Barry could now feel their body heat, as well as taste the hot sweat clinging to their bodies.
Oh, what he wouldn’t do for the taste o
f real food. He retracted three of his appendages, frustrated when the two humans ran straight past his shop. That was so unfair. Barry pushed his bulk backwards, already he sensed his new body beginning to wither due to the lack of nutrients. Open topped tuna and mayo sandwiches, roast beef baguettes and cream horns had only wetted his growing appetite.
Even the Kay thing hadn’t satisfied his ravenous hunger. Barry rolled over to the old stone mantelpiece at the back of their living quarters. The marble front had been the only remaining piece left in the old building. He had wanted the damn thing ripped out, explaining to Kay that the antique shop on the next street would give them a decent price for it. Kay wasn’t having it though and told him straight that it was staying. Of course he’d done exactly what she asked. All of his courage had gone into standing up to his father all those years ago.
He wrapped an appendage around a plastic bottle that once contained two litres of carbonated dandelion and burdock. Now it contained what remained of Kay. He violently shook the bottle, watching with interest as the black gunk on the other side of the plastic stayed in one form. It reminded Barry of cold black wax. Strange how the last bit of the woman still retained the ability to survive.
Barry tipped the bottle up, yet the gunk still stuck to the sides of the plastic. He wrapped two more appendages around the bottle and squeezed. As the last vestiges of the woman he used to love squeezed through the tears like toothpaste, he opened his secondary cavity and dropped the entire container inside.
From the back room widow, Barry saw the front of the antique shop. A human face was pressed against the front window. He expelled the melted plastic bottle from his anal flue before sliding over to the side door. Perhaps there was opportunity to feed again after all.
***
The air sandblasted the inside of his lungs as Ryan raced across the grass verge. He skidded to a sudden stop when Sierra cried out and stumbled. The girl would have smashed onto the tarmac if Ryan hadn’t spun around and caught her wrist. “It’s okay, honey,” he said, keeping his voice soft to help reassure her. If only somebody would be the same to him.
“Oh crap, I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep ever again. What was that thing?”
Ryan swallowed hard, patiently waiting for his poor heart to calm down. He placed his hands in her hair and tucked Sierra’s head against his chest. Only then did he risk looking back the way they came. The thing hiding in his car had not followed them.
“It’s not following us is it?”
Ryan rested his hands on her shoulders. “Do you think I’d still be here if it was?” He leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose. After gagging at the vile odour that had punched him in the face when he pulled open his car door minutes earlier, Ryan so relished the faint smell of soap and deodorant still attached to Sierra’s body.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m fumigating my nose,” he said, chuckling. “I hope you don’t mind. Thing is, I would have preferred to stick two scented candles up my nostrils but like an idiot, I left them at home.”
His forced attempt at humour proved fruitless in calming down his racing heart and over wrought mind.
No matter how hard he tried, the image of that – thing, refused to leave him. Ryan believed that it once was human. He only caught a glimpse before slamming the door on those five octopus-like tendrils that had whipped out from the interior. The brief flash of a ragged pair of tight cut-off denims around its waist was enough to convince him that their species was now in serious trouble.
They had yet to find evidence of other unaffected people. This hospital and the grounds were devoid of all human activity. Not just here either. The absolute silence clung to him like a thick blanket. He’d experienced this total absence of sound a few times before but not here, not in suburban England. He seriously began to wonder if they were the only people left alive.
A looked over her head at a sandwich shop across the road from the hospital gates caught his eyes as he searched for signs of life. Like the other buildings in the immediate area, that one looked as deserted as well. Yet the hairs on the back of his neck bristled whenever he gazed into the blank shop front, as if there was some malevolent presence inside, staring back at him and stripping away his thoughts, layer by layer.
He shivered, blinked and turned away. Stupid, did he not have enough on his plate without an empty shop spooking him?
“We had better get a move on.” Ryan pulled her up. “As my car is out of bounds, I need to find another one.”
Her hand slipped in his. “I don’t understand any of this.”
Ryan pulled her over to a maroon Ford Escort, peered through the windows and nodded in satisfaction. This would suit their purpose just fine.
It took him just a few seconds to get inside the car. It pleased him enormously to discover that his old, rather dodgy skills hadn’t left him when he turned away from a life of crime and embraced respectability. He lay across the seats and opened the passenger door for Sierra. His inadvertent regression into his darker nature helped to push all of this weird shit crashing into his every sense back behind a thick fucking curtain.
“You don’t have to understand the situation,” he said, kissing on the nose. “just stay alert and alive. Now, you’re going to have to direct me to your mum’s place,” he said, pulling the dashboard apart to bypass the ignition. “I know my way around Radfield’s town centre and through some of the major roads, but I’m not great with street names.” Ryan shifted his attention, catching Sierra staring at him, her features reminding him of a dead fish on a slab. “You do know where she lives?”
“You’re really stealing this car?”
“Yes, I’m really stealing this car,” he replied. “Considering the circumstances, I don’t think the owner will be coming back for it, do you?”
He grinned when the car started first time; he pushed the gear into first and slowly made his way out of the hospital carpark. Allowing his mind to fester on what was happening beyond the confines of the vehicle obviously had a bad effect on him. He turned to Sierra. “I think you’d better fasten your seatbelt. We won’t be the only people still living in their original skin and I suspect that they’ll be coping a little worse than us.”
“Ryan, please, tell me what is happening here.”
He shrugged. “I’ve no idea, some kind of disease, a chemical attack?”
Sierra began to cry. “What am I going to do if my Danny is like that creature in your car? I don’t think I’ll be able to cope with that.”
Ryan kept silent; her fears amplified his own terror. Right now, that curtain stayed drawn. Although, thanks to him stealing the car, that curtain was now transparent, allowing him to see out. Even so, Ryan did believe that that catastrophe was localised, there was no logical evidence to back up his assumption but right now, his theory put Emily well out of harms way. According to her mother, his little girl was currently on a school holiday, somewhere in Scotland.
“She doesn’t live too far from the hospital, Ryan. Just keep going and I’ll tell you when to turn.” Sierra opened the glovebox, searched through the contents before clipping it shut. “To be honest, I don’t think you’d need my directions anyway, considering my mother lives directly opposite your dig site.”
He suppressed the urge to laugh at the bizarre quirk. Although it did help to understand why Sierra’s mum wasn’t too happy about his team turning the park into what now looks like a construction site without the breeze blocks and cement mixers. Looking at her troubled face made him wonder as to why they had been spared.
It didn’t take a genius to work out that nearly everybody else must have changed into something else. Sure, even if it had been just a few alterations and people were hiding from them, he would have seen signs of other people by now. According to the milometer, they were now two miles from the hospital, and in those two miles, Ryan had yet to see anybody else.
“Do you think that we’re the only ones left?”
He
turned sharply, seriously wondering if she had just read his mind. Christ, of course not, hell, what other subject could be dominating the girl’s head in this instance? What were the chances of two people in close proximity surviving this while the rest of the population changed; what made them two so special and what did this mean for Sierra’s little boy?
Ryan turned back to face the road and immediately took his foot of the pedal. He slammed on the breaks and gawked.
In the garden to the left of the car he saw the end of a lawnmower disappearing behind a privet hedge. Ryan frantically wound down the window and pushed his head through the gap, immediately wrinkling his nose at the smell of mould tainting the very air. Ryan then saw the lawnmower moving back into his view, attached to the handle was the strangest life form that he’d ever seen in his life.
Just the weirdness of the situation put even the multi-coloured nightmare of fur, teeth and tentacles from the hospital into regression. It had once been human, that much was obvious. Ryan put aside his original terror that had attached to his guts when he tried to push open that blocked door and allowed his professional curiosity to take charge.
There was little chance of working out the man’s age due to the mass of what looked like pure white fur covering most of his body. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the picture of an out of shape polar bear pushing a lawn mower. Judging by the open toed sandals and dark brown shorts, barely covering his lower body, Ryan guessed that the man wasn’t a teenager. Upon closer inspection, he saw several clumps of tiny black spikes pushing up through the white material.
“He’s covered in mould!”
Ryan gaped. That was exactly it! Sierra had voiced the one thing that had been bothering him. The white stuff was all over the lawnmower as well as on the wall behind the man.