Authors: Terry Farricker
‘But my father…’
‘Is probably our only hope now.’
Frank turned his attention back to the plains. The things that fell from the orb’s chains would periodically hit one or two of the monstrous army. The distance they fell meant that they hit the things on the ground at an accelerated velocity, pummeling and crushing them into pulp. Alex looked further afield to where the landscape gently sloped upwards to the base of a range of imposing mountains. Everything was grey, old and wilted, faded by time as pages are parched and made decrepit by the passage of time. The mountains sprawled away forever, as there was no horizon for them to disappear over and Alex felt sadness as immeasurable as those peaks and summits as she recalled the first time she had seen the mountains beyond the asylum.
Then she caught movement on a plateau near the crest of one lofty range. A huge marble altar had been raised on a naturally flat, stone shelf on the side of the mountain there, and Alex could distinguish more of the humanoids positioned around it. The table was oval shaped and fully twenty feet in width. The things gathered around it seemed to fall into two castes. There were a number of dwarfish beings, twenty or maybe thirty in total, with pot doll faces, demoniacally contorted as they raced in and out of the second group of beings.
The second group was huddled around the table, and appeared largely unaware of the presence of the hurrying smaller life forms. These creatures were seven or eight feet tall and made Alex think of the man in black. They were thin, stooped, shrouded and bloodlessly pale. Where flesh protruded from their adornments, it was skeletal, white and bony, and evidently their great age had wrought changes in their body’s constitution. The fingers of the long, thin hands were fused together to form a tapered stump, maybe a foot long and petering out into a snake-like tip, that squirmed of its own volition. The features that were visible were wasted and corrupt, tumors and calluses festering in the absence of a nose and mouth.
They assumed an attitude of rank over the first group when their paths crossed, swiping the mutated dwarfs out of their way with a flick of their tentacle-like appendages. These tall, bent, antique beasts reminded Frank of generals, safe behind the front lines and conducting the slaughter from the comfort of their map rooms, as he himself had witnessed when delivering reports to headquarters so many years ago. The image was strengthened and made more plausible by the articles strewn on the table, replicas of the masses that thronged on the plains below. Only these representations were also alive, miniature creatures that cowered, frightened and ignorant, on the stone tabletop. The generals bickered and squabbled over maneuvers and drank flagons of a red, clotted liquid that spilled from their ravaged mouths.
Occasionally, a general would slam its white, squirming elongated arm against the tabletop, crushing minute forms, bones snapping like dead twigs, and causing an uproar of howling amongst the busy dwarfs, enlivened and excited by the act. One of the generals, an exceptionally tall creature concealed in a blood red cloak, moved towards the edge of the precipice and held aloft what resembled a staff, made from something white and bleached. Alex realized it was a spine and that it was still subject to involuntary spasms. The general threw back the hood of its red gown and its head was revealed, swollen and cracked, as if blasted by fire, the flesh burnt and molten. Its jaw fell open and extended towards its chest like a preying snake, dislocated and gaping obscenely.
It then unleashed a sound, the like of which Alex had never experienced before, a shriek so desolate and empty, it felt like a blow rather than a noise. It was the sound of despair, of futility and death, the sound of the end of things, amplified through the wails of thousands. Alex recoiled. It was as if every sadness, every fear and death of hope she could imagine was encapsulated in that cry, and the army on the plains below roared in response, their frenzy increasing as their ranks seemed to swell. It was impossible to accurately judge the number now, but Alex estimated it at tens of thousands.
The generals gathered around the table became more and more agitated, thrashing their mutated limbs across the table, scattering the tiny life forms, some of which fell from the stone altar to be snapped up by the dwarfs and eaten by the handful. As if herded, the masses on the plains surged forward and the sky turned blood red as the orb dimmed. The army moved en masse, brushed by an invisible force, tumbling and rolling forward like leaves. The noise became a thunder, deep and ground shaking, as if an identical multitude moved beneath the plains, as well as above, and the land seemed to buckle under the pressure.
Then the explosions resumed. Until now they had been sporadic and at least half a mile distant, but now they hit the ground fewer than two hundred yards away from the parapet of the trench. Frank slid down into the belly of the trench and pulled Alex’s leg by the calf, but Alex resisted.
‘I have to see this, Frank, I have to.’
‘For the love of God, Alex, we have to go, now!’ Frank turned to estimate how quickly they could evacuate the trench from the opposite bank, but when he turned back Alex had gone. In her place, his leg still held by Frank’s hand, was the young soldier that had climbed out of the trench over a century before. The boy cut down mercilessly by enemy fire. Frank stepped back, letting go of the soldier’s leg and stumbling into the swamp that formed the bottom of the trench.
The young soldier smiled just as he had on that day and repeated Alex’s words, ‘I have to see this, Frank, I have to.’
This time Frank did not hesitate and he regained his feet and flung himself at the young man, knocking him from the firing step and into the mud, screaming as he grappled with the soldier, ‘Not this time! This time you keep your bloody head down!’
Frank was sitting across the man’s chest and both of them had already begun sinking into the mire. A huge explosion shook the ground barely twenty feet from the trench and the blast wave reached into the trench, plucked Frank from where he knelt and tossed him against the far wall, like a discarded doll. Alex crawled from the sludge where Frank had pinned her down. She knew she probably could have taken his head off with one well-aimed blow, but she had realized Frank was hallucinating, reliving some pivotal point in his life.
Another shell burst, fifteen feet from the lip of the trench, and this time Alex was slammed against the hardened earth and wooden slats of the trench wall. She came to rest next to Frank. She immediately saw he was unconscious, and her own head pounded where it had hit a length of wood. The guns were finding their range now and a flash of white light dowsed the dim, gloomy heart of the trench, as the ground was rocked again.
The shelling was indiscriminate though and shell after shell rained down on the advancing army as the cannons searched for their prey. Decimating as the missiles were, they did little to reduce the thrust of the horde. Then as Alex’s senses cleared, half a dozen creatures appeared on the parapet of the trench. They were repulsive deformations, skinless and abhorrent, with the gleam of their bones shining through the mucus membrane that sheathed their forms. Each one had a hollow, transparent metal spine that protruded and supported a network, busily transporting black liquid to different parts of the body, keeping it coated in an oily film. They each carried bows, carved from bone and loaded with black arrows that appeared to be fashioned from the barbs of an animal.
Before Alex could react, an arrow pierced her left thigh and another embedded in her shoulder. The pain was intense, even when she tried to block it out. But already she was standing and searching the trench floor for a weapon. She was shocked at her response, instead of cowering and accepting her fate she was fighting back, and she fully understood the desire to reach her child was now fuelling her actions. As another arrow flew past her cheek and the first two monsters began to slip and slide into the trench, Alex stumbled upon a discarded bayonet.
Alex’s older brother, Ben, had been killed in action on the Sino-Russian border in 2031, having already fought in the Iranian wars of the mid-2020s. It had become apparent to Ben during the Iranian wars that any conflict involving the Western Alliance would rely less and less upon up-close and dirty infantry work, due to the staggering advancement in remote technology, such as drone crafts, remote land vehicles and multiple launch mobile weapons: so, he terminated his commission. Then like many others of his generation, he took his skills and sold them to the highest bidder. In this instance to the Russians. The Sino-Russian border conflict offered lucrative rewards for mercenaries from the Western Alliance, but sadly a Chinese sniper’s bullet ripped through Ben’s heart, just three days before his contract expired and he was due to come home.
Ben survived two days and was given sectional heart replacement treatment, but died in a coma whilst Alex held his hand on a virtual link from the U.K. When Alex was young and Ben was home on leave he had taught her how to throw a knife. She was not very adept at it but she knew the rudiments and the science of the weight distribution.
The membranous film covering the closest creatures did not look very robust. Still, she doubted she could do much damage and maybe a wound was the best she could hope for. Alex brushed aside a stray lock of unruly auburn hair and judged the distance between herself and the advancing monster. She adjusted her stance to allow her aim to stay in line with the thing’s throat and allowed it to move two steps closer whilst she visualized the trajectory. Then she hurled the blade at the creature.
As soon as she began the throwing action she was stunned at the rapidity with which the bayonet was propelled. She felt the muscles in her new arm flex and spring, impelled by her replaced shoulder joint, and the blade flashed as a blur towards the monstrous being. The bayonet leveled and entered the creature’s throat like it was driven by pistons, at precisely the point where it hit the correct aspect of its rotation, slicing through the meat of the thing’s neck and bursting out of the lower portion of the back of its skull. It was still travelling at speed when it lodged squarely in the centre of the second creature’s forehead.
At that second, a projectile smashed into the parapet of the trench, ten feet further down the line, and the shock tore the four creatures at the summit of the trench to pieces, spraying Alex with a jellied secretion that tasted of petrol and smelt like raw meat. The sky turned blood red as the orb dimmed and then Alex heard hundreds of voices, vaguely mechanical but hoarse and imbued with pain. The voices were getting closer, being herded towards the trench as if they were cattle, tumbling and rolling forward. Then they seemed further away as Alex slid out of consciousness. The teeming throng at the lip of the trench blocked what illumination the failing orb afforded and Alex’s own diminishing field of vision, as she slowly became aware of only blackness and then nothing.
Chapter Twenty-Two
2036. October, Sunday. 11.10 a.m.
When Andrews opened his eyes he thought he had descended into Hell. The grey was everywhere now, but it had a red tint and Andrews imagined it was blood that had been daubed. Everything was altered and made abstract, even the floors and walls were no longer aligned. It was as if Andrews had wandered into a sinister version of a fun house. And Robert was gone.
Andrews quickly looked around for his revolver, feeling his jacket simultaneously, but he could not locate the weapon. He looked down the corridor and saw the tears that had appeared mid-air moments before he had lost consciousness. There were wet footprints leading from each of the phenomena, large and trailing a deep red jellied substance. He assumed he hadn’t held enough interest for whatever aberrations had spewed from the ruptures, as the footprints skirted the area his body had occupied and then carried on down the corridor and across the main reception hall.
The tears remained open, gaping like slashes in bruised meat, dripping a slimy green paste that instantly corroded the floor, fizzing and vaporizing upon contact and leaving small craters in its wake. Andrews noticed a trolley pushed against the right-hand wall of the corridor ahead. He was still thirty feet away from the top of that corridor, where it opened onto the main reception hall, which he would then have to cross in order to arrive at the door of the study and ultimately the cellar. The trolley was the standard hospital variety, used to transport patients around the facility, but it had not been there before the openings appeared. Andrews could only assume it had come through one of the tears along with the other things.
There was a white sheet on the trolley and Andrews was sent back to images of the night his wife and child had died. The same blanket hiding the remains of his wife and son, as if they were something to be ashamed of. He felt his blood run cold and his legs became heavy, as his stomach suddenly felt entirely filled with aching emptiness. Andrews had decided to push on and at least get to the main hall before he reviewed his situation. He assumed circumstances had contrived to force Robert into unilateral action and hoped he was already in the cellar and still alive.
Andrews spotted the gun, it was covered in the green gunk and before he had a chance to check himself, he had retrieved it. The slime burnt the top layer of skin from his hand, turning it into plastic-looking peelings that dripped wax-like onto the floor, but Andrews did not let go of the weapon. He moved parallel to the trolley and inspected it more closely. At first glance Andrews had thought the covers arranged haphazardly, but then he had noted how they almost assumed the definition of a person, a somewhat haphazardly constructed person. There was a faint rasping noise coming from below the cover and Andrews realized with dread that the shape of the blanket was not caused by random folds, but by whatever lay beneath.
The thing under the covers must have been deformed judging by the contours, and there were small sodden patches of fresh blood distributed over the cover. There was another moan, dry and desperate, and Andrews’ hand reached tentatively for the sheet. He felt like he was standing on the highest ledge of a skyscraper, looking over the edge and goading himself to step into oblivion, as he pulled the cover back. Andrews had been present at plenty of crime scenes and had witnessed most forms of depravity, exercised by many types of depraved individuals, but the occupant of the trolley touched on new levels of brutality. The man was viscously lacerated and torn, every inch of his body ripped, hacked and sliced. Lumps of his flesh were absent and at other points bones protruded or skin was so aggressively inflamed that it was difficult to distinguish between dried blood and deep red swellings.
The man had evidently undergone surgical procedures, as a large area of his torso bore massive, exaggerated stitching, the thread resembling the consistency of rope rather than twine. When Andrews leaned closer, he saw that a second ribcage had been carefully implanted, grafted onto the original skeleton so that it sat like a bony fist, unclenched inside the skin. The covering skin was stretched so tightly that the superimposed rib cage threatened to burst outwards, like a large skeletal spider forcing its escape from a fleshy tomb. Andrews drew back and looked at the man’s face and his heart jolted in his chest like a misfiring engine.
The man’s face was blank. But it was not that there was an absence of emotion, but rather the absence of features. The eyes and nose had been removed and replaced with skin, although it was possible to see the suggestion of the sockets and cavities by the inclination of the new flesh. The lips were missing too, but there still existed an incision where the mouth should be, revealing the teeth and gums in their entirety. The man’s teeth were a permanently gnashing set of razors, gnawing and chattering at high speed, as if stripping meat from invisible bones. As Andrews recoiled further, the head rose slightly and twisted so the barren face aimed the terrible incisors at him, still snapping incessantly and apparently eager to rip into Andrews’ throat.
Blood jetted in small springs now, as stitches burst, firstly around the head, then the shoulders and then sickeningly around the back and waist. Andrews backed away further, as he realized the man was actually stitched to the mattress on the trolley. A feeling of static electricity and a hot, numbing sensation pricked at his back where he entered the periphery of one of the tears that hung in the corridor. Blood now soaked the trolley’s mattress and Andrews could see the man’s skin still on table, like a flesh shadow or a scene of the crime outline where chalk had been replaced by the victim’s peeled flesh.
Andrews raised his gun and screamed, ‘Stay away from me!’
But the man had recovered a lethal-looking scalpel from a kidney-shaped tray that was attached to the trolley, and was hacking at the stitches that secured his legs to the mattress. Andrews fired twice, each bullet hitting the man in the chest, roughly where his heart should have been located.
Andrews took one more step backwards and stiffened as a wave of energy reached out from the tear and coursed through his body. His eyes closed momentarily and he felt his heartbeat begin to race, then slow. Then he snapped back into reality and saw that the man had freed one leg and was frantically sawing at the stitches restraining his second leg.
Andrews emptied two more rounds into the man’s torso. The blood and tissue, leaking and spurting from the sawn stitches, had soaked the mattress now, and it looked like the man had been reclining on a bed of mashed, red roses. Andrews turned to face the tear and was immersed in a warm film of blue-white light that deadened the nerve endings in his entire body. The gun slipped from his hand and clattered on the tiled floor, dancing on its barrel for a second, before falling flat, pointing at the man.
A familiar sound filled Andrews’ head and although the noises that pervaded the corridor were the sounds of the greyness and the screams of the man on the trolley, Andrews heard something else, something only he could perceive. Like the whisper of an angel. Stephen Andrews heard his wife and child calling his name, not the electronic and thinly human sound caught by his CCI, but the warm, sweet voices of his lost family. Behind and all around Andrews the tears were giving birth to the revitalized dead, disgorging them like vomit as they plunged into this world.
But all Andrews was aware of were the voices, his wife pleading, ‘Don’t let it be in vain, Stephen. So cold. So far away and alone.’
And his son, ‘Daddy, help us, don’t leave us again, please, Daddy.’
And he was oblivious to the man finally releasing himself from his confinement and staggering from the trolley. The man tightened its grip on the scalpel and took more unwieldy, cumbersome steps, but the effect of motion, after such a long period of immobility, was devastating. The exposed back, now stripped of its skin, began to discard organs and they slipped out in sack-like parcels, splashing onto the floor like newborn animals. The trolley bore testimony to the man’s recent occupancy, as a perfect outline of skin now lay stitched into the material of the mattress.
The man moved on though, trailing entrails and innards, in a putrid wake that plotted its progress across the corridor. Andrews let the force of the tear draw him, and the delicate process of removing his soul from his Earthly vitality began. Multitudes of soulless dead shells now swarmed through the tears as the man from the trolley moved within four feet of Andrews’ unguarded back. Andrews felt serenity, fulfillment, ecstasy and a shedding of all pain and concerns, but he did not feel the first slice of the scalpel as it was drawn across his throat, or the blade as it entered his heart again and again, as he was beyond that now. Then his body fell forward and downward into the tear as his essence shot upwards and away.