“Whatever happened at Leadenford Hospital,” Freeman said as he sat at the kitchen table, studying the papers, “was centered on the cancer ward run by Doctor Page. If the medical waste that was dumped at Camp Everbee is connected to that ward, we have our smoking gun.”
He flipped through to another page.
“Something escaped,” he continued. “Something that caused all that damage on the ward, enough damage that the military preferred to blow the place sky high instead of risking further contamination. I mean, can you imagine how bad things must have been? They literally decided to destroy the place instead of trying to clean it out. What the hell was in there?” He studied the page for a moment. “But it
did
get out,” he continued, “because unknown to everyone else, the hospital's waste was being dumped off the books. There was no paperwork to follow, so they probably figured they'd contained everything, but they hadn't. Whatever was there, it ended up here.”
Turning to the final page, he saw a photo of Doctor Andrew Page.
“He understood what this thing is,” Freeman whispered. “He worked it out, but he was too late to stop it. The official version is that he was killed in the terrorist attack on the hospital, but it's starting to look like he was blown up by the military along with the rest of the place.”
After staring at the photo for a moment longer, he turned to see that Karen was still sitting in the chair over by the door, having seemingly preferred to sit in the shadows since her return from the bathroom. She was strangely quiet and still, as if she had no interest in the work her brother was trying to get done, and although he waited for some kind of response, Freeman began to realize that she seemed completely vacant.
“You okay?” he asked finally.
She nodded.
“You sure? As soon as the rain stops, I'm gonna drive you to the hospital so we can -”
“I'm fine,” she told him, her voice sounding very calm. “You don't have to worry about me.”
“But -”
“No hospital,” she said firmly.
“This isn't a conspiracy theory,” he continued, still feeling uneasy. “This is fact. Those assholes were trying to cover something up at Leadenford Hospital, but they failed. Now it's right here on Everbee mountain, it's probably even in the camp.”
A faint smile crossed Karen's face. “You make that sound like it's a bad thing,” she said eventually.
“Let me show you something else,” he replied, getting to his feet and heading to the door. “You're gonna get a kick out of this, Sis, it's a hundred times better than some goddamn squirrel.” Hurrying out of the room, he could be heard a moment later making his way out of the apartment and into the parking lot.
Alone, Karen sat completely still, staring into space. Deep down, in the back of her mind, she knew that something was wrong, but at the same time she was struggling to keep her thoughts together for more than a couple of seconds at a time. Every few seconds she felt a flash of panic, but it never lasted long enough for her to actually do anything. Instead, some other instinct was in her head, battling to take control, and she could feel herself weakening with every moment that passed. She knew she should tell her brother, that she should try to get help, but the other part of her mind – the sudden new part that seemed to have come out of nowhere – told her to her to stay quiet and forced a smile onto her face.
“Ready?” Freeman said a couple of minutes later as he hurried back inside and placed a large, tarpaulin-clad object on the floor. “You won't believe this, but I swear it's real. I got a video of it when it was up and about, but I need to get my phone back from that bitch at the camp. For now...” Unwrapping the tarpaulin, he revealed the deer carcass, complete with several black tendrils poking out from the chest and face.
Karen immediately sat forward in the chair, the smile falling from her face as she stared at the horrific sight.
“One deer,” Freeman continued, “complete with a parasite the likes of which I've never seen, and I bet
you've
never seen either. Not on this scale. I mean, look at the central mass, it's the size of a goddamn fist.”
Getting down onto her knees, Karen shuffled toward the corpse and reached out a hand until she was touching one of the tendrils.
“Careful,” he told her. “We don't know what these things can do. We don't even know if this one's dead.”
“It's dead,” she whispered, stroking the tendril gently as tears welled in her eyes. “It died in pain. Scared. Alone.” She paused for a moment, as if she was genuinely overcome with emotion. “All it wanted was to survive. Out there in the dark and the cold, it knew it couldn't last long once it had emerged from the ark, so it found a new body. It wanted the same thing that all life wants. It wanted to survive.”
“It wanted a piece of
me
.”
“The history of life on this planet is filled with examples of parasitic life,” she replied. “What could be more beautiful than two completely different lifeforms, somehow finding a way to work together so they can both make it through the world?”
“You think this is beautiful?” Freeman asked, clearly horrified by the idea. Holding up his hand, he let her see the wound. “Goddamn thing lashed out at me.”
“It was defending itself.”
“It was trying to kill me!”
“Who attacked first?” she snapped. “Who was the aggressor? I know it was you!”
He stared at her, barely able to believe what he was hearing. “Karen, seriously -”
“The strong subsume the weak,” she continued, her voice trembling as she continued to run her hand across the dead tendril. From the look in her eyes, it was almost as if she was attending to the corpse of a dead friend. “That's how the world
should
work. Humanity has long been happy to accept the arrangement in order to prosper, but you should have known that one day something new would come along, something from within.” She paused, as a tear ran down her cheek. “The Great Memnon must be told of this tragedy.”
“Maybe we should get you to a hospital,” Freeman replied, watching her with concern. “I'm sure there's nothing to worry about, Sis, but it wouldn't hurt to get you checked out.” Making his way around her, he noticed a glistening patch of matted hair on the back of her head, and he realized that her injuries were worse than he'd been led to believe. Spotting a cut on her neck, he saw that her skin appeared to have been partially sliced open.
“He knows,” Karen whispered.
“Who knows?”
“The Great Memnon.”
“The...” Pausing, Freeman checked his watch. “I don't think we should wait for the storm to pass. I'm taking you to hospital right now.”
“We must mourn,” she replied. “One must always mourn the dead of a fellow soul.”
“You mean the deer?” He waited for her to respond, but she seemed too focused on the tendril to even hear him. “Karen?” he continued finally. “You're starting to freak me out just a little.”
“We should bury him,” she said finally.
“Seriously?”
“It's the only respectful thing to do. His death was tragic. We must give him a proper grave.” She turned to her brother. “Right now.”
“It's pouring with -”
“I can do it,” she said, interrupting him. “I don't need you, I'll dig a hole myself.”
“No,” he replied, despite the faint pain in his lower back, “I'll dig it, I just...
Then
we go to the hospital, okay?”
“Maybe,” she whispered, looking back down at the carcass.
“This is crazy,” he muttered, heading over to the door. “Going out into a rainstorm to dig a grave for a goddamn animal.”
“He deserves it,” Karen replied from behind him. “He's such a beautiful creature.”
“Then bring him with you,” he muttered, glancing back at her. “I'll find a spot near the roses, then we can -”
Stopping suddenly, he saw that Karen had carefully removed the black mass from the deer's body and was carrying it toward him, with the tendrils dangling down almost to the floor.
“What are you doing?” he asked incredulously.
“We're going to bury him,” she replied. “You said it yourself.”
“The deer! We're going to bury the deer!”
“The deer?” She glanced back at the mangled body for a moment, before turning back to her brother with a frown. “Why would we do that? It's dead, it's just a common beast. No-one cares about such things.”
Staring at the creature in her hands for a moment, Freeman saw that its glistening, smooth black mass was glistening in the electric light.
“Karen,” he said finally, “I really think you need to sit down. You're not acting rationally.”
“But why can't -”
“Just humor me,” he continued, stepping past her and grabbing his laptop. Tilting the screen up, he entered his password and then began to search online for information about the incident at Leadenford Hospital. He was fully aware that Karen seemed to be just staring at him with the creature still in her hands, as if she was waiting for him to dig the grave, but he forced himself to focus on the task at hand: he wanted to make doubly sure that there was no mention anywhere of the creatures being able to infect healthy human adults.
Scrolling through page after page of results, he tried a few different search terms until finally he spotted what appeared to be a video. Bringing it up, he watched and saw that it showed the same deer he'd seen, but evidently a few hours earlier when it was on its side in the forest with a couple of black tendrils emerging from its side.
“Lizzie_miller_96,” he muttered, reading the username of the person who'd submitted the video to a site in an attempt to find someone who could identify it. Checking the date, he saw that the video had been uploaded just a few hours earlier, and that the geo-tag indicated Camp Everbee.
“Are you ready now?” Karen asked, with the dead creature still in her hands. “It's disrespectful to hold him like this for too long.”
“It's a plague,” Freeman whispered, feeling a sense of dread creeping through his soul. “There might be more of those things up at the camp. Everyone's in danger.”
“Property of Leadenford Hospital,” Lizzie read from the side of one of the yellow sacks. “Hazardous materials. Handle with care.” She turned to Beth. “Well,
this
doesn't seem shady at all!”
“Everyone!” Crystal called out as the campers assembled around the various sacks. Rain was still pouring down, and as the only person in possession of a torch, Crystal was careful to shine the light around each of the campers, picking out their faces one by one. “First, I want to assure you that the warnings on the sacks are obsolete. In order to minimize our use of plastic at Camp Everbee, we purchased some unused and very durable bags from a medical facility, but the bags were completely empty when we acquired them and they haven't been used to store anything dangerous. They contain nothing more than waste from the camp, but we can't have it here during the storm. Does everyone understand?”
“Waste from the camp?” Lizzie muttered, pulling open one of the large sacks and leaning inside. “This looks more like -”
“Please don't go poking about in there!” Crystal called out, waving at her. “You there, thank you! There's really no need!”
“This is ridiculous,” Lizzie continued, turning to Beth.
“The arks,” Beth whispered, running her hand across one of the sacks. “This is how we traveled to the promised land. The arks brought us out of danger and into the wild, where we could begin to take our rightful place.”
“You
are
on drugs, aren't you?” Lizzie replied, stepping closer and looking straight into her eyes. “Your pupils are a little off...”
“The Great Memnon was the first to emerge,” Beth continued, staring at the sacks with obvious happiness. “He led the way. As the strongest and fittest of us, he journeyed to find new strength. For now, he remains far away, still exploring the world, but when he returns, everything will be complete.”
“So let's all join together,” Crystal shouted, “and get these sacks down toward the river! If we work hard, it'll only take half an hour or so!”
A groan rose up from the other campers.
“And there's beer for everyone once we're done!”
At this, a sense of shock rippled through the group.
“Just the one,” Crystal continued, “but yes, I have a can of beer for anyone who wants one!”
“What the hell?” Lizzie muttered, turning to look over at her. “This woman wants to give free beer to a bunch of cancer sufferers, in the middle of a storm, in exchange for them helping move some sacks of waste?” She paused for a moment, barely able to get her head around what was happening. “Is everyone here even over eighteen? This is insanity! No-one's gonna fall for such a stupid bribe!”
She looked around and realized, however, that the offer had worked. The others were starting to get to work, pushing and pulling the sacks across the forest floor with Crystal using her torch to light the way.
“The last days of humanity,” Beth said, watching calmly. “In some ways, this feels strangely poetic.”
“For once we agree on something,” Lizzie continued, taking a step back. “This woman is a whack-job, she's seriously out of her fricking mind.” Turning to Beth, she stopped suddenly as she saw to her surprise that Dean Marlowe, the camp deputy, was staring at her from the other side of the sack, with only his head visible, as if he was kneeling. “Are you in on this too?” she asked. “You can't seriously think that what this woman is doing is right!”
She waited for a reply, but Marlowe merely stared at her blankly.
“I know this might make me sound a little anti-social,” she continued, “but I don't care, I want to state for the record that I think this is wrong! From a purely ethical point of view, what this woman is doing is tantamount to -”
Stopping suddenly, she saw that Marlowe's head was wobbling slightly.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “Did the -”
Suddenly Marlowe's head rose, as if he was getting up, except that Lizzie saw that he had no neck. Instead, his head was being held up on the tip of a long black tendril that was reaching up slowly from inside the sack. After a moment, the tendril's tip began to poke out of the dead man's mouth.
“What the...” Lizzie whispered, taking a step back as she saw a couple of other tendrils slipping out from the sack, flicking at the air and, after a moment, seemingly turning toward her.
“That's right,” Beth said with a smile, putting her hand on the side of the sack. “You don't need to be scared. All the scouts have reported back and it's safe to come out now. We've reached the promised land and the Great Memnon wants us to take our rightful place. My brothers, my sisters, the age of revelation – as prophesied by the Great Memnon – has finally arrived! Rejoice!”
Lizzie watched in horror as Marlowe's severed head swayed for a moment at the top of the tendril.
Finally, she opened her mouth to scream.
Before she could make a sound, however, she heard someone else screaming a little further away, followed by several others. Turning to look across the dark forest, she saw Crystal's torch flailing wildly as all the other campers ran away from the sacks they'd been moving.
“It's time,” Beth said with a smile. “It has begun.”
***
“Tea, coffee and biscuits,” Laura muttered to herself as she took a step back, admiring the items she'd laid out on a table in the cabin. “If I don't say so myself, I think I make a pretty good -”
“Help me!” a female voice screamed outside. “Somebody help me!”
Racing to the door and pulling it open, Laura looked out just in time to see a silhouette hobbling across the grass, waving desperately at the cabins. Making her way out into the rain, Laura ran over to meet the figure, only for Kirsty to run straight into her, almost knocking them both down.
“Help me!” Kirsty shouted breathlessly, grabbing onto Laura's shoulders. “For the love of God, you have to help me!” Turning, she looked back the way she'd come for a moment with wild, staring eyes. “I think there are more of them. I heard something following me through the forest, like it was chasing me or... hunting me...”
“
What
was chasing you?” Laura asked, looked down at Kirsty's body and seeing that something seemed to be wrong with her right foot. “Are you okay?”
“We have to get out of here!” Kirsty continued, pushing past and limping toward the cabins. She began banging on all the doors. “Wake up!” she shouted .”There's something in the lake! It's in the forest, it's coming this way! We all have to get out of Camp Everbee right now!”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Laura asked, limping after her.
“We have to call the police,” Kirsty continued, making her way into their cabin. “Where
is
everyone?”
“They're out doing some kinda job with a bunch of sacks,” Laura replied, following her inside. “Listen, you -” Stopping, she saw to her horror that the skin on Kirsty's right foot had been completely pulled away, leaving nothing behind except de-gloved muscle and bone. “You ran back here from the lake?” she asked. “On
that
? Seriously, what happened to you?”
“It was in the water,” Kirsty stammered, barely able to speak as fear gripped her soul. “I didn't see it, but it reached up for me and it almost dragged me in. I had to -” Looking down at her foot, she stared for a moment before screaming.
“Hey!” Laura said, hurrying over and putting an arm around her shoulder. “It's okay. You're going to be fine, just sit down for a moment.” Helping her to one of the beds, she eased her down. “I'm the only one here right now,” she explained, “but the others are going to be back soon. Real soon, I swear!”
“Are they in the woods?” Kirsty asked.
“Yeah, but -”
“You have to get them out of there! It's not safe!”
“What happened to you?”
“There's something in the lake,” Kirsty continued, as tears rolled down her cheeks. “Whatever it is, it's in the forest too. It's everywhere! We have to get out of here!” Letting out a gasp of pain, she looked down at her ravaged foot and saw that she'd left bloody footprints across the cabin's wooden floor. “It feels numb,” she whispered. “I don't want to lose my foot. I can't ever be an air stewardess if I only have one foot!” She turned to Laura. “Where's Todd?”
“I have no idea!”
“Didn't he come back?”
“How the fuck would I know?” Laura asked. “Beth came back, though, and she's seriously freaky. There's something wrong with that girl.”
“Please,” Kirsty whimpered, “we have to get out of here. We have to wake everyone up and make them leave
now
!” Grabbing her phone, she unlocked the main screen. “No signal.”
“No-one's got signal up here,” Laura reminded her. “We're in the shadow of a mountain, remember?”
“There has to be a land-line,” Kirsty replied. “You have to get help! You have to call someone!”
“I don't think anyone's here right now,” Laura continued. “I just got back from the main building and it's all deserted. Everyone's in the forest.”
“Then they're in danger,” Kirsty replied, turning to look toward the door. “They might even be dead by now. Those things are out there.”
“Relax,” Laura replied, trying not to panic. “I'm sure they're all fine.”
***
“Run!” shouted one of the other campers, before dropping to his knees with tendrils flailing across his shoulders. Falling forward, he let out one final gasp as the creature's spherical main body attached itself to the back of his neck and began to drain him; as it did so, the creature began to noticeably increase in size with every drop of blood.
All around, terrified campers were running through the darkness, trying to get away from the scores of creatures that had come squirming out of the yellow sacks. With no way of seeing which way they were going, some of the campers collided with one another and some ran straight into trees, while others stumbled over the bodies of their fallen comrades. Screams filled the air as rain continued to drive down, and a strong wind blew between the trees.
“Isn't it beautiful?” Beth said, grinning serenely as she listened to the cries ringing through the forest. “That's the sound of the natural world reasserting itself.”
“You've got to be kidding,” Lizzie whispered, taking a step back as she watched the silhouette of a girl drop to the ground with two creatures attached to her. After a moment, the creatures seemed to start fighting over the corpse, their tendrils flailing wildly at one another.
“My brothers and sisters were scared,” Beth replied, turning to her. “Only a few of us were brave enough to crawl out of the sacks and explore. I was lucky, I found this body stumbling alone through the forest and in a moment of opportunism I took it. I don't know what happened to the other flesh pioneers, but I'm sure they're around somewhere. I'll find out when I link back up to the race memory.”
“So this is a reality TV show, right?” Lizzie continued, looking around as she saw the silhouettes of other terrified campers racing into the distance. “It's a Channel 4 thing. Definitely feels like something Channel 4 would do.” She turned back to Beth. “Is it some kind of social experiment? Are they, like, testing us to see how we react to pressure? Are we going to start getting voted out?”
“It's justice,” Beth replied. “For years, our species has been growing inside your own, but you used chemicals and radiation to try to hold us back. Humanity launched a holocaust against us, killing billions of our species as we fought to emerge from your bodies. Fortunately, by doing so you were only making us stronger. Over time, we learned to withstand your attacks.”
“Stop it!” Lizzie shouted, taking another step back. “Beth, just stop, okay? Talk to me like a normal human being for once!”
“Beth's gone,” she replied. “At first I pushed her to the side of her mind, but then I was able to transfer the remains of her soul into a mass of flesh that I ejected into one of those portable bathrooms. I think you were outside at the time.”
“You're sick,” Lizzie continued. “I'm not falling for this. You might think you can entertain people at home by hooking up hidden cameras and terrifying a bunch of kids with cancer, but I'm not going to go screaming through the forest for your pleasure.”
“Good,” Beth replied, stepping toward her. “That means I won't have to chase you.”
“But if you -”
Before she could finish, Lizzie saw to her horror that a thick black tendril was poking out from the side of Beth's neck, and a moment later another emerged from her chest. The two tendrils snaked in the air for a moment, their tips flicking in the rain and wind.
“Like the deer,” Lizzie whispered, taking another step back. “Those are some neat special effects, but...”
“I'm so glad you're going to let me feed without putting up a fight,” Beth continued, edging closer. “Sometimes, I feel as if I expend more energy chasing my food than I actually gain from the meal. Thanks to you, though, I should be nice and plump by morning. We'll all need to be strong for the next stage of our journey. Once we get away from this mountain, that's when our task will really begin. We must get in touch with other groups, I can already sense some coming this way, and then we have a whole world to free from human tyranny.”