by Stuart Keane
"Oh, by the way, Bob. The human stomach can only hold about four litres of fluid or food." I pat the silver machine, which rumbles beneath my palm. "This container holds seven litres. And it's full." I step away from Bob, whose eyes are on me, ready to pop from his head. He struggles before the first vomit slips into his throat. The eyes close as he tries to refrain from drinking the puke. He can't, the machine is too powerful. He resists for about ten seconds before his gag reflex is shattered in a cacophony of bile and bodily fluids. His body bucks and thrashes as the vomit slides down his throat, filling his stomach.
I slowly watch Bob die. I wonder if his bowels will explode, showering the floor with blood and organs. I have no need to find out. The LegReg has done my bidding.
I turn to Ed. I smile.
My speech from earlier comes back to me.
The Legend of Regurgitation, or LegReg for short, speaks of three kinds of people. The greedy, the lustful and the rich. Each of these has their own trait, a quality that enhances the effects of the LegReg. Today, I aim to find out if that is true.
I kneel down and slap Ed, awakening him. His piggy eyes blink and look at me. I glance at his I.D, his vast credit card collection, his car keys to a Mercedes. I read his name badge.
Ed Windsor, Bank Manager.
"Hi, Ed. Does the name Cheryl Knight mean anything to you?"
Animalocalypse
Liam tried opening his eyes.
At first he couldn’t, the wind prevented them from performing such a normal function. The wind was strong but cool, caressing his pockmarked face. It whistled down his pyjama legs and around his acne-ridden back. His t-shirt flapped loudly. Liam breathed in a lungful of cold, crisp air.
Then his eyes opened.
He was flying. Liam looked up and saw glorious, blue sky. It was a warm summer's day devoid of any clouds. Blue stretched as far as the eye could see like a peaceful canvas, untouched by an artist's brush. Liam held out his arms, pushing them against the g-force that pinned them to his side. His body felt as light as a feather.
Look at me, Ma, I'm flying.
Liam spread his arms like an eagle.
I'm the king of the—
He looked down.
Barrington, his hometown, spread out below him. He recognised the bakery, the school, his local library. The museum stood tall and grand, the pride of the town. However, something didn’t seem right.
Why was the bank in flames? Was that the army? What were they shooting at?
He answered his own questions as, before his eyes, a rhinoceros pummeled into a school bus and knocked it into the air. Liam saw the silent, screaming faces of the children as the bus landed on its side, glass exploding from the windows. A small child leapt from the bus and the rhino tore into him, impaling him with its horn. The kid was severed in two, his flopping legs slapped against the dented bus. His mutilated torso landed on top of a businesswoman, who was hobbling away from … was that a swarm of bees? A huge black, moving cloud smothered the woman. She thrashed, spun and fell to the floor. Her thrashing ceased slowly.
What the fuck?
He begun to speed up and ascended slightly.
Why am I flying? If this is a dream, wake up.
Wake up!
Liam didn’t wake up.
Sudden, sharp pinches on his shoulders interrupted his dreamlike state. Reality set in, pain coursed through his muscles like acid, and he looked to his left. He screamed, the noise voided in the strong gales that now battered his face. He glanced right too and saw the same thing. Again, the scream was lost to the air. His arms started to twitch and blood soaked into his t-shirt.
Each shoulder was skewered on the talons of a golden eagle. Their eyes, pinned on him at all times, were black, swirling masses of pure evil. Liam was old enough to know birds didn’t smile but their angled beaks looked like sneers of unadulterated menace.
Liam screamed.
The birds of prey released their grip.
Liam plummeted to the ground, his hometown came to greet him. Liam closed his eyes and prayed. "Please be a dream, please be a dream." He opened them again as the air whipped at his body.
The expanding, blood-soaked asphalt was the last thing he saw.
Penelope ran into the street, passing an overturned bus. She could hear a dozen screams from children trapped inside the vehicle. As she stopped, her feet skidded on a pool of blood. She toppled onto her rump and yelped. Seconds later a murder of crows blazed over her head, inches from where she'd stood, and crashed violently into the bus roof. The sickening crack of bones, wings and organs filled the air as two dozen crows slumped to the asphalt below, leaving bloody smears down the dented metal.
She looked at them and gasped. They were aiming for me.
Shit.
Seconds later, a young boy splattered on the ground beside her. Blood, muscle and body parts flew into the air like a gory fountain of humanity. Blood spattered Penelope, and she yelped. An eyeball landed in her cleavage. She gagged and tried to pull it out, failing to do so, squishing the white orb all over her chest. The warm viscous fluid dribbled down her front, oozed into her belly button. She pulled her shirt off in disgust, wiped the gore away, and threw it behind her. Penelope looked away and breathed, ignoring the yellow stains on her sports bra.
The broken body came to a rest, the legs snapped in a dozen places. The sheer impact of the fall had obliterated the poor boy. Penelope looked up and saw a dozen eagles circling overhead. Two more boys were unfortunate passengers, circling, ready to drop at any time.
Penelope groaned and stood up, slipping on the blood-soaked ground. She glanced around.
The world was utter chaos.
She'd heard it on the radio and had to see it to believe it. Penelope now wished she'd stayed indoors. Apparently, animals of all kinds and species were running amok, killing humans, attacking and mauling. As a former zookeeper, her curiosity was piqued. It had to be an elaborate hoax.
Like the War of the Worlds. Or Santa.
However, she realised this was no hoax. And a lot, lot worse.
To her left, a woodpecker had attached itself to an old lady’s head. It was burrowing into her face, its beak and feathers slathered in viscera and gore. The face was nothing more than a bloody chasm of muscle, broken bone and torn sinew. The woman was dead, held up by the bench beneath her. Her bowels had released, a trail of brown liquid dripped between the bench slats. The stench of death was pungent. The woodpecker continued burrowing.
Penelope gagged and turned away.
"Penelope?"
She turned and saw her former head teacher, Mr Turner. He wore his normal brown suit, white shirt and his usual look of cynical disdain for the world. Today, it was mixed with fear and terror. Penelope was thankful to see a familiar face. School was a distant memory, it had been some time since her teenage years, but in such a small town, it was hard to get away from the familiar feel of it all.
Today, nothing was familiar.
Barrington was hell on earth.
"What the fuck is going on?" Mr. Turner's question made Penelope laugh. He was a religious man, so swearing, for him, was foreign. In all her years, she'd never heard him drop the F-bomb.
"I don’t know," she replied. It was a useless answer but a truthful one. She really had no idea. She looked around, getting her bearings. Mr. Turner yelled and pointed into the distance.
A herd of cows was trampling a man in a wheelchair. He'd become stuck in the sodden grass of Barrington Park. Usually a place bustling with activity, the park was awash with blood and bodies. The cows trod on the man, who toppled onto the ground, helpless, his body crushed beneath their weight. They let out a loud 'mooooooo' as they continued trampling him. His head imploded under one hoof, the wheelchair folded on his body and squeezed the life from him. Blood and brains sprayed the white hair of the cows. They continued walking, heading for the residential home on Rushton Street.
"We need to get out of here."
Penelope gr
abbed Turner's hand and pulled him away from the road. Turner was looking around in astonishment. They stepped onto the pavement beside Barrington Park and headed west, towards the supermarket and the shopping centre. They needed a large interior with other people, safety in numbers.
A huge crash, followed by deathly screams, erupted into the chaotic air. Penelope spun around. The school bus rolled over and landed against Ma's Bakery. The shattered windows dropped kids onto the street beneath it. The bus was like a huge, death-ridden rolling pin as it crushed children under its huge, behemoth-like frame. Glass sliced into them effortlessly. By the time the bus came to a stop, blood was pooling on the ground below. Several tiny corpses lay, shredded and dismembered.
Penelope looked slightly to the left, and stayed still.
A rhino, covered in blood and bullet holes, stood facing her.
Penelope felt a chill crawl up her spine. The one remaining eye of the rhino was black, swirling. It reminded her of a glass of Pepsi. It scuffed a foot on the road, preparing to charge. "Mr. Turner … get ready to run. The supermarket, we need to go there, okay?"
She didn’t see, but Turner nodded and started running.
The rhino growled and scuffed again. Penelope realised she didn’t have a choice. She ran too, following Turner up the street. The shopping centre stood before them, a beacon of hope. To the left was Tesco. Turner was heading to Barrington Mall.
Wrong way.
Wait, did I say Tesco or the mall?
Shit.
Too late to change that, she thought. She shot a glance back.
Pounding hooves reverberated along the concrete beneath her. An army Humvee pulled from behind the obliterated bus. A man sat on a turret and started firing at the beast. Automatic gunfire filled the air and the rhino squealed, insistent in its charge. Blood erupted from several fresh bullet holes in its torso.
It didn’t slow down.
Two soldiers climbed from the vehicle and started firing at the charging animal. Again, it didn’t slow. It was only metres away now. Penelope couldn’t take her eyes off it.
Then she screamed.
Three tigers pounced onto the soldiers and started mauling them. The man in the turret went first, his throat torn by the flying feline; its teeth tore his jugular mid-flight and left him no hope. His jugular dangled on his chest, blood sluicing down his front. The tiger swiped at him, ripping his face off, his flapping skin splattered on the ground a few feet away. His body toppled behind the Humvee, out of sight. The other two soldiers fell to the ground beneath a blur of blood and striped fur as the tigers tore into their dinner. The screams subsided fast. After a moment, only gurgles of ripped throats and tearing of cartilage filled the air.
Penelope turned and saw Turner reach the entrance of Tesco.
Ah, good. He did hear me.
She didn’t see the parked car before her.
The woman slammed into the bonnet of the car and knocked the wind out of her lungs. The vibrations of one pissed-off rhino were upon her. Penelope struggled to stand but her legs wouldn’t work. She rolled over slowly. The rhino was bearing down on her. Penelope closed her eyes.
"Hey, over here you piece of shit."
Turner was waving his arms in the air, taunting the creature. Penelope looked at him and his location. "Mr. Turner … no, get away!"
He nodded and smiled. Turner spun around and stopped. The smile vanished from his face as the rhino altered course and headed straight for him. Behind Turner was a bank of ATM machines. He was blocked in, the expected shop front metres to his left.
Too late. Turner faced his predator. "Bring it on, you –"
The rhino pounded into the teacher and smashed him into the machines. A cacophony of electronic squawks, human agony and dying beast filled the air. The creature broke the wall, crashing into the side of the supermarket. Bricks rained down on their crumpled, broken bodies. Penelope screamed and looked away. When the dust settled, nothing moved.
Penelope began to cry. This was my fault. I told him to go to the supermarket. What was I thinking? She stood up and wiped the tears from her eyes.
No, this isn't your fault. The circumstances are hardly normal.
She turned and surveyed what was left of her town.
It was utter anarchy.
The majority of the scenery before her was a shade of red. Vermilion and scarlet and crimson and burgundy. Ravaged bodies lay in all kinds of poses. Some were whole; some were dismembered. Gory organs and limbs lay in the street, one bald head rolled back and forth between two lions who were playing with their meal. Above the grocery store, its front window now home to an upturned, flaming Skoda, a giraffe was tottering around, a broken leg hanging from its mouth.
Her eyes scanned to Barrington Park. Several people were bound and tied in the swings; taking a beating from two chimps who were swinging on the climbing apparatus. A naked man sat, crying. He'd defecated on the ground. The monkey was scooping up the man's own faeces and throwing it at him. A gorilla sat nestled on the climbing frame itself, sitting proud. Penelope watched it direct traffic, pointing and giving orders. As it did, a monkey peeled the scalp from a dead child's cranium and put it on. A gaggle of cheers erupted from the simians.
Penelope couldn’t believe her eyes.
She backed up to the mall and ran for the doors.
Barrington was slowly dying behind her.
*****
"So what do we do?"
"There's not much we can do."
"We can fight back, innit. We should take them on."
"Be serious. There's six of us against thousands of them. We're outnumbered. This isn't time for your gang mentality shit. "
Silence filled the room.
"The kid's right, we fight back."
The group of people stopped and stared at Penelope. Jeremy, proud of his suggestion to fight back, flicked his chin in pride. "This 'ere woman hears me, y'know."
Penelope was gazing out of the window at the swarm of animals. They were lining up outside the mall in droves, a thousand species united. A throng of activity.
Ferrets, badgers, beavers, aardvarks, hippos, black bears.
Pandas, alligators, elephants, ducks.
Penguins, meerkats, monkeys, squirrels, frogs, cows, horses.
Tigers, lions, pumas, rabbits, giraffes, wolves, dogs.
Even the smaller animals and insects were present. Several snakes sat coiled on the backs of various tortoises. Swarms of bees and wasps and hornets circled in the air like evil, black clouds. Spiders, hundreds of them of all breeds, converged on lampposts and signs. Dragonflies buzzed about, hitting the glass before them. A thousand moths floated in the air.
Watching.
Waiting.
United.
"Excuse me? Did you say fight back?"
Penelope sighed. "Yes, I did."
Impossible odds, but what other choice do we have?
"Who put you in charge?" Dave, the elderly security guard of Barrington Mall, stepped forward. He tapped Penelope on the shoulder. "Huh, answer me. Who put you in charge?"
Penelope turned to face him. "We fight back, or we die. It's that simple."
Silence filled the room once more. Penelope turned to the people present. Dawn, a pregnant woman sitting in the corner, spoke first. "I can't fight back in this condition. I'd be next to useless." Robyn, a nervous woman beside her, nodded in agreement. Penelope bit her lip and moved to the door.
The mall was empty. A weird, eerie feeling settled on her. She saw shadows of animals in the doorways. The blinds were down. A smile crept over her face as she saw the wheelchair ramps. "We can get you a wheelchair, or a motorized scooter. If we move as a unit, plan our attack, we can escape."
A teenager called Zoe stepped forward. "With what? We don’t have any weapons." She returned her attention to her iPhone. "Man, I have to tweet about this."
"Then why don’t you? Use it to call for help," asked Robyn.
"Twitter’s down or something." She
held the phone in the air. "Man, the 3G is proper shit in 'ere." Her boyfriend Jeremy nodded in agreement. "If ma girl can't tweet, she gets feisty, innit!"
Penelope rubbed her forehead. "We have weapons, this is a shopping centre. There's sports stores, kitchen departments, toyshops. We have an arsenal at our disposal."
"What about guns? They'd come in handy right now."
"I wouldn’t count on it." Penelope remembered the soldiers in the street. "Besides, they’re not easy to come by."
Jeremy stood up and smiled. "Check ma nines." He pulled out two gold plated 9mm Berettas. Robyn and Dawn cowered away. "I got them proper blinged up. For such an occasion as this." His words drawled, trying to be 'gangster'. Penelope looked at him in a mixture of loathing and joy.
Dave stepped forward. "Yeah, we have shotguns in the office too." He looked at Jeremy. "For when the occasion arises. You'd be surprised how often we need them."
"You starting, blud?" Jeremy stood up, pushing his chest out.
Dave sneered. "Sit the fuck down, homie. Put your teeth back in your head and shut the fuck up. And point those guns away from us, dickhead."
"Calm down, everyone, calm down."
Jeremy shrugged and sat down.
Penelope ambled around. "Right, we have weapons, some firearms … which, considering the circumstances will come in handy." She clapped her hands together. "Right, we go on a scouting mission. Get the weapons, anything useful and we find a way out. Dave, is there a maintenance exit? To the roof or something?"
Dave shook his head. "Yes, but I suggest using the car park. Going on the roof, with those swarms, is a bad idea."
Penelope nodded. "Good point. Does the mall have any designated vehicles?"
Dave smiled. "We have an armored van."
The room filled with murmurs. Penelope smiled. "Excellent. Dave, take Robyn and Dawn with you, round up some weapons. Find Dawn a wheelchair. We’ll head the other way, stick to the top floors and we'll meet back here."
