The thin limbs quivered as they effortlessly drained the life from Georgina Bainbridge, her body shaking as each litre of her innards was stolen from her body. Her now pendulous breasts shrank into old, deflated balloons, leaving her bra hanging loose like an abandoned hammock. With her skin slackening further, her features became gaunt and drooped from her skull as the musculature beneath was drawn away. Katy was reminded of stop-motion effects from some gruesome eighties horror film as Georgina’s form and structure changed before their very eyes. The creature lifted her from the ground, her head taking her weight, causing her thrapple to protrude unnaturally as every ounce of fluid drained away from within.
Katy wanted to scream, but her mouth was dry. Screaming achieved nothing in the eyes of this unrelenting beast.
Beside her, Lola jammed her fingers as far down her throat as she could, choking, gagging and retching as she clawed the back of her mouth. Her cheeks, wet with tears, were flushed a bright cherry as revulsion from her stomach fought to keep its contents.
It lost.
Lola retched wetly and then her own key was in her hand. She shook off the sticky contents of her stomach that clung to it and unlocked her padlock.
“Give me your car keys!” she demanded of her sister.
Katy paused from her attempts at purging, rummaged in her purse that was by her side and passed the keys to her sister.
“You’re not leaving us, are you?” Katy asked, wiping spittle from her lips.
“I’m coming back. There’s something in your car I need. Keep that fucking thing busy!”
“Busy? Fuck off, Lola!”
Then her sister ran off into the darkness as the creature discarded the depleted remains of Georgina beside Phil’s, like an old coat, the two of them becoming a couple in death. The creature turned its attentions to the remaining split trio, those cold blue eyes sizing up its options, seemingly calculating its next move with an unnerving intelligence that one shouldn’t see in an insect.
But this was no normal insect.
Indeed, it wasn’t even an insect.
Ziggy ceased chopping at the tree and readied the axe.
“I’m going to give you more time, Katy. I love you. Try to escape. Live a good, long life. Have babies.”
“Ziggy, wait!”
“Katy, get your key,” he barked.
Ziggy waved the axe at the creature, then shouted: “Come over here, you ugly fuck!” in an effort to sway its next choice.
Unfortunately for Ziggy, the creature took him up on his invitation, grasping hold of a branch in the tree above.
“No!” Katy protested, but the creature still advanced. Ziggy beckoned the beast with his blade, as Jake continued to wretch. The creature, the tree hugger as it were, reached out with another limb, positioning itself.
Katy couldn’t reach Ziggy to aid his battle, but she could throw something. She reached out for a thick branch from the pile of logs and threw it at the monster. It glanced off its back, causing zero concern.
“Leave it, Katy, it’s okay,” Ziggy reassured. “Get your key and get out of here.”
She couldn’t. She was dry. She’d tried, but her stomach had refused to give up its contents. She loved her food far too much.
The creature had descended fully from the tree, and now stalked painfully slowly towards Ziggy with its hellish, calculated skitter. Its front end reared up, moving with a mantis-like sway as its multitude of legs changed weights, feigning left and right as Ziggy slashed out with the axe.
The creature raised one of its tri-claws directly above Ziggy.
It had the advantage of reach.
With a single downward sweep of the limb, the giant insect imbedded the claw deep into Ziggy’s skull, splitting his head open like a soft Halloween pumpkin in late November. His face opened up, his eyes rolling in different directions, but one focusing on Katy, his twisted, sloped smile meant for her as he dribbled blood and broken teeth over a protruding tongue that hung out further than it should have, a perverse scroll speaking words of death. A cascade of gore soon hid all of this as the creature began to feed noisily on what it needed.
Katy Mace screamed at the sight of her ex-boyfriend being slurped like a juice carton. His body shook perversely, jittering out a final jig as he was consumed from the inside. His hand swung the axe at his side, then with a palsied spasm, the weapon dropped to the forest floor with a soft thud. His knees buckled and he knelt before his death god in submission. She realised that she still loved him and she screamed again as the fear flocked out from her in fluttering waves. A deeper darkness bled into her vision as she realised that she was next.
It turned her stomach and then with no real effort at all, Katy Mace vomited over herself, but mostly down the crease between her breasts.
She collapsed as the last ounce of hope left her. Here she was; shackled to a tree, covered in vomit and about to be eaten alive by a creature that had devoured her friends.
It was over.
Then she saw the key on the forest floor, amongst the splatter of her half-digested last supper, still glinting despite its surroundings and meagre light. She picked it up and with shaking fingers, managed to undo her padlock.
She was free!
Jake was still retching but with no luck and gazed upon the key as if it were fabled treasure.
“Katy …”
“I’m sorry, Jake. I think it might be over.”
Katy shouldered her chains and picked up a log from the pile.
The creature had finished with Ziggy, dropping his empty corpse as useless litter. His death hadn’t been in vain. He’d bought her time as a last act of his love for her.
Katy turned and threw the log. It hit the beast along its flank and it turned, making a guttural snarl, those deadly blue eyes searching for its next victim. It saw only Jake, for Katy had vanished behind the tree.
Jake was sitting bait.
* * *
Unperturbed, the creature approached the meal, not in the slightest curious as to where the other had gone. Perhaps it had fled. It didn’t matter. Food was food. It would find more.
The meal was making noise, screaming. They’d all done this. It was a minor annoyance, but the sound did nothing to ruin the feast.
It approached and struck down with one of its feeder arms, plunging it into the throat of its food. The scream became wet, then stopped altogether. It began to feed in silence.
Something struck it from behind, nudging it forward, but it paid no heed.
It was feeding, that was all that mattered.
* * *
Jake had been a sacrifice. Without his key, he was doomed either way. Katy chose to use his imminent death to her advantage, hiding behind the tree as the beast fed on him then circling back around, shoulder barging the beast and using her own chain and padlock to fasten it around its carapace to the chains where she once stood.
She winced as she pricked herself on the sharp ridges of its back, but determined, she worked through the pain and stepped away, the padlock secure.
Unless it removed several of its legs, the thing would be stuck fast.
She backed away and picked up Ziggy’s fallen axe, ready to strike, when a shape emerged back into the trio of oak trees.
Katy readied the axe, expecting another monster from the darkness, but relented when she saw it was her sister.
“Wait! I’ve got this!” Katy looked at what her sister held. It was a five-litre fuel can. She recognised it as the one that she kept in the back of her car, ever paranoid that she’d run out of fuel one day.
“I got a signal and managed to call the cops. Let’s smoke this motherfucker.”
Katy swapped the axe for the fuel can, but as she unscrewed the top, the monstrosity managed a half turn and jabbed a claw at Katy. It wasn’t one of the feeder ones, but a simple curved spike it used to cling. Regardless, it hurt as it twisted between the skin of her collarbone and ribcage. She fell to her knees before it hoisted her up, bringing h
er closer to its feeder claws, ready to drink her insides like a smoothie.
Katy held onto the claw with one hand, taking her weight so it didn’t tear any more than necessary.
She screamed as she felt the claw move and chafe against the bones inside, the unnaturalness of it strangely exhilarating to her as it scratched and reverberated within.
Below her, Lola screamed her name but the sound meant nothing as the claw ground against bone and the blood rushed past her ears.
The surge of adrenalin was preparing her for death. Her body was readying for the pain of what was to come.
“I’ll give you a drink, have one on me,” she growled and then began tipping the contents of the fuel can over the thing’s eyes before tossing it at the creature’s flank. It skidded across the underside of its carapace, dropping next to the tree with a dull thunk, glugging its contents at the beast’s multitude of legs.
“Light it up!” Katy bellowed.
The creature hissed, drew the claw back and flung Katy away as if she had become poisonous to touch.
Sensing the opportunity, Lola swiftly dipped low and used the blade of the axe to shovel up a glowing ember from the scattered fire.
The creature removed its claws as it abruptly finished feeding on Jake, dropping his half-empty corpse so it hung limp and folded over the chains, leaking guts and gore from a ragged hole in the top of his skull.
It wheeled around, its blue eyes half-blind but still searching for new food to quench its blood-thirst. It lunged, coming to a jarring halt as the chains held it back. It raised its numerous feeder arms, blood frothing angrily from the strange mouths.
Lola tossed the axe upward. The ember left the blade and landed with precision beneath the monstrosity.
A moment of agonising nothingness was followed by an eruption of light as a fireball erupted from the ground and engulfed the creature wholly.
Lola ran to her sister and helped her up, leaving the dark creature to suffer the hungry flames, its flailing limbs sending strange shadows flickering up around them as they fled.
The creature made a noise that sounded like a scream, but they knew that it wasn’t for it had no true mouth.
It was the blood and everything else boiling within.
* * *
They reached the road and embraced, sobbing into one another despite the filth that covered them.
They watched the dying light beyond the trees, which grew in intensity as the flames took hold of the dry forest, burning up everything else around the creature’s remains. The fire was spreading with frightening hunger, and they both hoped that the destruction was worth it.
In silent reverence, the gravel crunched underfoot as they made their way back to the cars. They smiled as the flash and awe of police lights approached in the distance.
They watched as streaks of blue light scored through the sky above, hundreds, if not thousands of them.
And they lost their smiles, forever.
<<====>>
AUTHOR’S STORY NOTE
I’ve had the idea for Tree Huggers for a while now, a tale of environmentalist besieged by an actual tree hugger, giving full irony to the title. I wanted a fun, gory, 80’s creature type movie that near enough jumps straight into the action with minimal set up.
I recently listened to an audio version of the story, and was struck by how filmic it was. I’m currently working on adapted Tree Huggers into a film script.
THE DOGS
SCOTT SMITH
From Dark Cities
Editor: Christopher Golden
Titan Books
Her real name wasn’t Rose—that was just what she used when she met guys on Craigslist: Rose or Rosa or Rosemary or even Rosaline (but mostly Rose). She’d always liked names that came from flowers. When she was six, she’d had a set of dolls, four of them, dressed like little cowgirls, and she’d named them Rose, Daisy, Petunia, and Tulip. Rose had been her favorite, though, the one she’d slept with every night.
There was a way you could phrase your post on Craigslist so it was clear what you wanted—or what you were offering—without being too explicit. Rose’s go-to headline was: “Gorgeous Young Girl Searching For Generous Older Gent.” She didn’t think of herself as a prostitute because she never took money from the men. Or only one time, with that Egyptian guy, and then just because it would’ve felt awkward to refuse it—the wad of bills he’d slid into her jacket pocket as they kissed goodbye at the door. It was a thick wad, but mostly tens and fives (even a couple of singles), so it seemed like it ought to have been more than it actually turned out to be. Rose ended up feeling disappointed when she finally had a chance to count it, in a bathroom stall at Penn Station, waiting to board the 8:37 AM train back to her mother’s house. She hadn’t eaten, and she was coming down from whatever the pink pills were that she and the Egyptian had taken together, so her hands were shaking, and she kept dropping the bills onto the bathroom’s dirty floor, kept dropping them and picking them up, and each time she did this she lost count and needed to start all over again. She never managed to arrive at a consistent number—it was one hundred and twelve dollars, or maybe one hundred and seventeen—a weird number either way, and small enough to make Rose feel cheap and whorish rather than classy like she’d hoped.
Money was never the point. It was the sense of adventure, the feeling of power, and the thrill of the places where the men took her, places Rose never would’ve been able to go on her own—expensive restaurants, clubs, and hotels … even their own apartments sometimes. Rose spent a night in a penthouse once, overlooking the East River, with a Christmas tree on the terrace. The guy she was with turned on the tree’s little white lights for her. Rose wanted to take a photo with her phone, but the guy wouldn’t let her. He was worried she’d post the picture online somewhere, and that his wife might see it. The wife was in Anguilla with the children, who were out of school for the holidays.
Rose lived at her mother’s house, in New Jersey, an hour’s train ride west of Penn Station. She had a room in the basement. This wasn’t as depressing as it might sound. Rose had her own shower and toilet down there, her own entrance; the only reason she ever needed to venture upstairs was if she wanted to use the kitchen—which she didn’t, mostly. She had a mini-fridge beside her bed, and a hot plate she never used, and there was a pizza place a short walk down the road, so who needed a kitchen? Rose was nineteen, but believed she looked older. She’d bought a fake Ohio driver’s license online two years ago; it listed her age as twenty-three, and no bouncer or bartender had ever questioned it. Rose had gotten her GED the previous summer, and then had taken a few classes in dental hygiene before dropping out (she told anyone who asked that she planned to go back, but she didn’t really believe it). Now she worked part-time at a beauty salon in downtown Dunellen, massaging shampoo into the scalps of elderly women and sweeping up the cut hair. On the first of every month, she paid her mother seventy-five dollars cash for the room in the basement (her mother called this “a symbolic gesture”).
Her mother didn’t know about her Craigslist dates. Rose would tell her she was going to spend the night in the city with friends—with Holly or Carrie—and this always covered things. Her mother didn’t know that Holly had moved with her boyfriend to Buffalo, or that Carrie had gotten mono and then hepatitis and then some sort of intestinal disorder, and now she was living in Alabama with a Pentecostal aunt and uncle, who were trying to cure her with prayer (so Rose didn’t really have anyone left in her life you could properly call a friend).
Enough people had told Rose she was pretty in the past decade that she’d come to believe it, too. She was self-conscious about her teeth (she had a slight overbite; if she wasn’t careful, it could make her lisp), and she wished her hair had more body to it, and always in the back of her mind was the comment a boy had made in tenth grade (that she had a rabbity, white-trash aura about her), but generally Rose could keep all of this at bay, and feel almost beautiful—especially at night, especi
ally if she’d been drinking. Long blond hair, blue eyes, skinny hips, softball-sized breasts: sometimes on Craigslist she’d describe herself as “a young Britney,” and no one she’d met had ever challenged her on this.
* * *
He said his name was Patrick, but he didn’t seem like a Patrick to Rose. In Rose’s mind, “Patrick” implied an Irish look—tall and fair-haired and blue-eyed, rather than short and dark and fidgety, the latter quality so pronounced in this case that Rose thought maybe he’d fortified himself for the date with a bump or two of coke. She didn’t care what his real name was. Most of the men she met were lying about one thing or another, just like her—names were the least of it. He took her to dinner at a sushi place in the Meat Packing district, and then escorted her across the street to a bar where it was too loud to talk. They ended up making out for five minutes in the little hallway that led to the bathrooms, and when she refused to follow him into the men’s room, Patrick told her he wanted to take her home.
He’d said he was thirty, but Rose guessed he must be closer to forty, if not already safely across the line. She thought he probably wore glasses in his normal life, because his eyes had a blurred, watery look when he talked to her, as if he couldn’t quite bring her into focus. His face was round, and slightly flushed, like the baby angels she’d seen in old paintings. Rose was certain she’d known the name for these creatures once, but she couldn’t remember it now—sometimes this would happen to her. Right after they’d sat down for dinner, he’d announced that he was a lawyer, and Rose had no reason to doubt him, but if he was saying it merely to impress her, he was aiming in the wrong direction.
Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volume 3 Page 34
