Breeding Ground

by Sarah Pinborough

  Jane sat quietly picking at her food at dinner, her eyes alive but dulled. Rebecca had left me to join her, Chester’s head resting on her lap as he sat between them. The little girl seemed isolated, a little of her closeness with Rebecca gone, as if she didn’t trust the older woman to always be there, and I couldn’t blame her for that. Everyone she had known when this had started was gone, leaving her in the same boat as the rest of us, but so, so much younger. On top of that, she and Rebecca had to deal with the fear. The fear that what had happened to Katie was going to happen to them. It made me feel guilty for my moments of self-pity earlier.

  Nigel sat opposite them, dishing out big smiles of sympathy and trying to make conversation with John. It seemed that his new sense of camaraderie had spread to the others, as earlier they had all traipsed back with their belongings to rejoin us in the original dorm. Something about that had made my heart sink, but I figured it had to be for the best. I might never learn to like Phelps, but we were going to have to learn to rub along. John didn’t look too comfortable about it either, sitting there talking to Nigel, but then he’d have to learn, too. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and the world was getting slim on people.

  George took the seat opposite me, his eyes glancing over to where the girls were. I swallowed my food.

  “How did she take it?”

  “It depends how you look at it. She cried, but she wasn’t surprised. She just kept saying that she knew because of the smell. Something tells me she’d come to terms with Katie’s loss before today.” He took a mouthful of food and chewed it without enthusiasm. “Still, she’s a very disturbed little girl now. She’s going to need lots of love and attention.”

  Across from us, Jane yawned long and hard.

  “She must be in shock. A long sleep will do her good.”

  I was nodding in agreement when the door opened and Whitehead came in. Not bothering to get himself any dinner, he came and sat down. His face was on the green edge of pale and covered in a slick sheen of sweat. He may have been a scientist, but pathology wasn’t for the fainthearted. I hadn’t really thought about that when he said he was going to do the postmortems, but now, looking at him, I could see that he’d really been through it.

  I put my own fork down. “What did you find?”

  His bright eyes shook as he leaned forward. “Well, that white stuff was all the way through Dave. Some strands were getting thicker, too. I can only think that it cocoons you from the inside out. I guess eventually it would have completely covered him. A bit like the original victims were cocooned.”

  The thought was repellent. “So, even if you get bitten, kill the bitch and get away, the bite ensures that you’re still food for another one?”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  “Jesus.” I seemed to be calling out to God quite a lot recently, but I figured there wasn’t fuck he’d be able to do about this shit. He’d given us our free will and this was what we’d done with it. I guess it was our turn to sort it out.

  “What about Katie?” George asked the question that I’d avoided.

  “Well,” Chris blew into the air at an invisible fringe, “it wasn’t what I’d expected, but it explains the weird lumps of fat.”

  “What does?”

  “In a human the baby gestates in the womb, starts small and grows from there, right?” Now that he was talking science, some of that sickly look had faded from his face.

  “Yes, even we know that much, Chris.”

  “Not with the widows, though.” He paused, ensuring he had our full attention. “It seems that small parts of them develop in different areas, mutating from the host’s original organs, and then each of those sections make their way to the womb, where they finally come together.” He shrugged. “Or so I think. The widow growing in Katie was only just starting to form, so there was nothing in her womb but a few strands of white stuff linking all the other bits together. I guess those contract at some point to pull it into the womb before it comes out.”

  We all stared at each other for a moment, George and I trying to take in the complete alien nature of these creatures.

  An image crept into my head, sending a shiver down my tired spine. “It’s definitely dead though?” The idea of that thing continuing to grow in Katie’s corpse revolted as well as terrified me.

  Whitehead didn’t look so confident. “As far as I can tell, yes. But then again, I don’t know shit. I took some precautions with her body and, needless to say, I locked the door behind me.”

  I didn’t want to know what he’d done to Katie to make sure that thing was dead, but I comforted myself with the idea that she would have wanted anything done to stop the thing inside her from surviving.

  “What about the blood thing the guy in London told me about? What do you make of that?”

  “Who knows? I tried some samples on a section of the widow that had been growing inside Katie, but no reaction. I’ll try again tomorrow. Maybe take some from Chester to see if animal blood is any different.” He looked tired. “Maybe whatever it is only works on live widows.”

  We’d kept our voices low so that Jane wouldn’t hear, but I doubt she was listening, anyway. When I turned to check on her, she was staring into space, leaning her head against Rebecca. It wasn’t long before she was being carried out by Nigel, fast asleep, and by ten o’clock most of the rest of us had joined her.

  Someone’s leg banging hard into the bottom of my bed woke me, along with curses and low voices telling someone to be fucking quiet. By the time I’d dragged my brain awake and sat up, I wasn’t alone, George reaching for the light switch to dispel the grey gloom of dawn. My vision still hazy, I saw John falling out of his bed and a booted foot kicking him hard in his naked stomach as the leg passed. Swearing and wheezing, he curled round on himself, sucking in his breath, obviously in pain and unable to move. What the fuck was going on? It was all happening too quickly for my sleepy eyes to take in. Slowly adjusting to the light, the figures spread around the room became clear to me and as I realised what I was seeing my blood chilled.

  Down by the door, Nigel had Jane held close to him, her young eyes wide over the thick barrier of his arm, and a couple of steps closer to my end of the dorm Michael had Rebecca held in the same way. It must have been his leg that banged into my bed as he passed, and I stared at the mild-mannered, middle-aged man that had barely spoken two words to me since we’d arrived. What the fuck was he doing and why?

  Only when he swayed slightly did I catch the glint of metal against Rebecca’s slim throat as her hands pulled at his arm with no hope of getting it off her. He couldn’t meet my horrified gaze and turned a little, dragging Rebecca with him despite her attempts at resistance, to where Daniel stood, pulling open the door.

  “Jesus, Nigel. You’re not really going to do it, are you?” Jeff was on the far side of the room, staring in disbelief. Very slowly, I reached down and pulled on my jeans, not wanting to provoke any kind of reaction that could result in the girls getting hurt. My heart pounded hard against my chest.

  Across from me, George had helped John onto his bed, where the kid was wheezing. The old man already had his trousers on, but his thin chest with loose skin and only a few white hairs made him look weak and vulnerable.

  “Do what, Nigel?” His voice was calm and strong, though. “What are you going to do?”

  “We’re going to give them what they want.” Nigel was grinning and insanity shone in the sweat on his face. “We’re going to give them what they want and then maybe they’ll leave us alone.”

  Outside I could hear desperate barking. Chester? It had to be. Michael had gone for a walk with him earlier and must have tied him up somewhere. All the pieces of this awful deception were slowly slotting into place. God, we’d been fools to believe that Nigel had changed. The dog’s bark pierced the hut. At least he hadn’t been harmed. He sounded full of life and anger from here, and I wouldn’t want to be Nigel or the others if he broke free.

  “What
do you mean?” I asked. Nigel’s words echoed meaningless in my dulled head, and the other man stared at me, his face very much animated and alive.

  “These two belong with the widows. Any sane man would know that. They’ve probably got them growing inside them right now.” Jane whimpered, tears leaking over Nigel, but the man took no notice. “They’ll turn. Just like the other one. Just like all the others. Like my wife, your girlfriend, and just like my Emma would have turned. We should never have brought them with us.”

  “So what are you going to do?” George was trying to move closer, but Nigel brought his knife a little nearer to Jane’s neck, forcing a sob from her and freezing the old man where he stood.

  “We’re going to give them to the widows. Right now. Maybe then they’ll leave us alone. They don’t want us, we’re too much work for them. There’s plenty of food out there. It’s the women they’re waiting for.”

  Despite the awfulness of it all, a laugh burst out of me. “You can’t believe that, surely?”

  Daniel glared. “Either way, the girls have got to go. I’m not sitting around waiting for them to change while they use up our supplies.”

  So that’s what it was about, for him at least. Saving resources. Saving himself for a little longer. Who would he come for next? George for being old? John for being young? Disgust heaved at my belly.

  “Now come on.” Nodding at Nigel and protecting his route through, Daniel looked more like a thug than a civil servant. “And if the rest of you have any sense, you’ll stay in here.”

  Still grinning, Nigel yanked the girl down the steps past Daniel’s hulking shape, and Michael followed with the struggling Rebecca, who threw me a desperate look over her shoulder. Daniel lingered, glaring at us, and it was when he turned that John and Oliver Maine launched themselves past me, taking him tumbling down the outside stairs in a flurry of obscenities and aggression.

  Galvanised into action, George and I ran past them, the three now a bundle of flying fists, and I wondered if our two were hitting each other more than Daniel, but at least they were pinning him down and keeping him out of the way. Jeff and Chris followed after us, and I grabbed the scientist’s arm. George disappeared behind the dorm in the direction of the barking, I presumed to find the dog and release him. We needed all the help we could get now, and I figured Chester would be a pretty good weapon if it came to defending the girls.

  “We need guns!”

  Chris shook his head. “Can’t get to them. It takes two keys. I’ve got one and Nigel’s got the other.” Once again I cursed Phelps. When we’d had the split in the camp, he’d suggested that the arms were in the hands of only one group. Dividing the two keys was the best solution we could come up with at the time.

  “Fuck!”

  Jeff shook his head. “I’ve got one.” In his hand he held a small pistol. “I took it when you were arming up to let the dog in. I wasn’t sure how all this was going to pan out then, so I thought this might be a good precaution. I should have kept it under my fucking pillow instead of in my drawer. I couldn’t get to it back there.” His eyes were desperate. “I just didn’t think he was going to fucking do it.”

  There was no time for guilt and I grabbed the gun from him. “Dean’s on the gate. You go and stop him activating it. We’ll go after the others.” Slapping him hard on the shoulder, I pushed him away, and turned to run towards the gate, Chris alongside me. Without the burden of dragging unwilling hostages, we covered the ground more quickly than the struggling figures we were so desperate to catch, and within a few minutes I could make out their outlines under the floodlights only a hundred yards or so ahead of us.

  “Matt!” A breathless voice called from behind us, and not stopping moving I peered over my shoulder to see Maine catching us up. One gangly arm signalled behind him. “Left John with Daniel. He’s not going anywhere. Oh shit, the gate . . .”

  The rumbling sound was instantly recognisable, but Jeff must have dealt with Dean one way or another, because almost as soon as it started to squeal open, the gate started shutting again. Thank God he hadn’t barricaded himself into the comms room, and the thought instantly begged the question of why he hadn’t. I guessed, as the air burned my hot lungs as it raced in and out, that as the time to put their stupid plan into action had approached, Jeff wasn’t the only one to get slightly cold feet. I figured that Dean had been quietly hoping that someone would come and stop him.

  “Oh shit!” My legs pounded harder into the concrete road, desperate to move quicker. Ahead of us, through the closing gap in the gate, three widows appeared, leaping into the compound, hissing and snarling, the red eyes glowing in their translucent skin around the bulbous area that could only loosely be described as a head. I was close enough to see the desperate plea all over Jane’s face as Nigel launched her forward, his own expression one of manic glee.

  The next few moments passed in slow motion. Jane tumbling through the space in front of her, hair floating around her, the thin T-shirt she wore as a nightshirt rising up around her young legs as she tried in vain to propel herself backwards. The widow that was furthest forward reared up to embrace her, the suckers on its underbelly pulsing as its thin legs danced out in front, almost luring her into its reach.

  Feeling the shout rising from my stomach, desperate to get to her, to stop what was happening, my own body lurched forwards as my feet betrayed me, stumbling over some outcrop of stone in the ground, the scream vanishing as my breath was knocked out of my chest with the impact.

  Still clinging to the gun, I dragged myself up on my knees in time to see the little girl disappear into the deadly female embrace, two legs wrapping round her, hugging her tightly into the suckers underneath, the rest of the body dropping down, keeping the creature’s catch safely hidden away.

  Screeching with delight, its red eyes dared us to try and take her back. The widow’s front mandibles clacked and through the gaps in its remaining legs, I could see Jane struggling from within the bloated sheen of thorax, her hair dangling down, her wide terrified pain-filled eyes visible for a brief moment before strands of white appeared, securing her to the widow’s belly. Where was that awful stuff coming from? The suckers? It must have been. If I didn’t have the awful knowledge that made me understand better, I would have said that she was being held in a protective maternal embrace, the web and suckers looking after her, rather than eating into her. Oh God, how could this be happening? How could Nigel do something like this?

  While I knelt there staring impotently at the widow, Maine rushed past me screaming like a banshee and threw himself at the creature, pulling at its body, trying to reach the crying child lost beneath, ignoring the way the creature snapped at him, biting his arms, penetrating him with its death-laden saliva.

  Finally hauling myself to my feet, I raised the gun to shoot the monster but with my inexperienced eye didn’t trust my shaking hand to hit the target, although I wondered whether maybe I should just shoot Maine instead, or the trapped shape of Jane. Both were lost to us, that much I could tell. I tried to aim, but my eyes were a blur, and frustrated and moaning I lowered the gun.

  Within seconds my inactivity didn’t matter. The second widow pounced lithely and swiftly onto Oliver, its legs grabbing him firmly around the middle, the pull almost folding the surprised man in two, sucking him back with it over the fence, disappearing in seconds. He was gone without a murmur or scream. All those years of life, vanished. Jesus. Jesus Christ.

  All hell was breaking loose in front of me. With a shriek of anger, seeing the widow encapsulate Jane, Rebecca wrenched herself free of Michael, his knife slashing her arm, a spray of blood flying out from the deep cut. Behind her, the third widow scuttled towards the terrified Nigel, who looked like he’d suddenly lost faith in his own hype about the widows leaving us alone. Mewling, he cowered backwards as it approached, but there was nowhere for him to go. He wasn’t quick enough to outrun it, and his own disbelief stopped him from trying. Teasing him, the widow took a quick st
ep forward, close enough to touch, but not doing so, almost enjoying the middle-aged man’s pitiful wail of fear as it danced around him. Frantically trying to keep out of its way, he jerked awkwardly, yelping and squealing like a terrified pig.

  “Help me! Help me!” His eyes finally found mine as he whined, and I stared at him uncomprehending for a second before once again lifting the gun, but the widow was too fast. Bored with its game, it jumped towards him, mandibles closing round his leg and bringing him down on the grass.

  “Get it off me! Get it off me!”

  And from out of nowhere, Phelps’s prayers were answered. Chester flew like the bullet I should have fired out from behind one of the buildings, barking as he pounced on the sobbing figure, pinning him to the ground. Lifting his head, the fur on the back of his neck rising up, he snarled at the widow, who hissed, but let go, blood dripping from it, creating strange pink tracks running down its disgusting skin.

  The two creatures stared at each other over the injured man for a few seconds, as if sizing each other up, and then a screech of true agony distracted us all, drawing our attention back in the direction of the gate and holding it there. What the hell was going on? It looked at first as if Rebecca were being attacked, her blood covering the widow, but then I realised that it was the widow that was crying out in awful agony as Rebecca smeared her blood on it, her face full of wonder as the monster burned on contact. Grabbing its leg with one hand, she held it firm, her injured arm raised above its bank of eyes, dripping into them and dissolving them as if it were acid falling. Desperate to break free, it twisted and turned, but she kept hold as it weakened, until finally it crumpled to the ground, resigned to its fate.

  Behind her, Michael stared, and I should imagine that my face had the same strange expression of awe on it, but without the hatred that somehow was mixed in with his. Like a robot on autopilot, he lifted the knife that hung at his side and strode towards her. At first I presumed that he was going to finish the widow off, to claim some glory from this miracle that she was producing, but as he got closer, his eyes were glowing with rage and they were focused on Rebecca.