by Will Hill
Matt saved his work and got up from his desk. He was small for his sixteen years, and skinny, his brown hair flopping across his high forehead and resting against the tops of his glasses. His face was pale and close to feminine, his features fine and soft around the edges, as though he were slightly out of focus. He was wearing his favourite crimson Harvard T-shirt and dark brown cords, and he slid his feet into a pair of navy Vans before walking quickly across the small landing and into his sister’s bedroom.
Laura was lying in her cot, her face a deep, outraged red, her eyes squeezed shut, her mouth a perfect circle. Matt reached into the crib and picked her up, resting her against his shoulder and quietly shushing her, bouncing her gently in his arms. There was a glorious moment’s silence as she took a deep breath, then the cries began again. Matt crossed the tiny room, pulled the door open and headed downstairs.
In the kitchen at the back of the house his mother was frantic. She was wearing her cream dressing gown and a pair of pale blue slippers and flitting back and forth beneath the two windows above the sink, peering into the dark garden and telling her husband over and over to call the police. Greg Browning stood unsteadily in the middle of the room, one hand pressed against his forehead, a can of lager in the other. He looked round as Matt walked into the kitchen.
“Shut your sister up, would you?” he grunted. “She’s giving me a headache.” Then he turned back to his wife. “Will you stop flapping and take the damn baby?” he said, his voice starting to rise.
Matt’s mother quickly took Laura from Matt and sat down with her at the table.
“Get the phone for your mother.”
Matt lifted the phone from its cradle on the wall next to the door and passed it to his mum. She took it with a confused look on her face.
“Now you can call the police while me and Matt go and take a look in the garden.”
“No, Greg, you shouldn’t…”
“Shouldn’t?”
Matt’s mother swallowed hard.
“I mean, don’t go out there. Please?”
“Just shut the hell up, OK, Lynne? Matt, let’s go.”
Greg Browning opened the door to the back garden and stopped in the doorway, listening. Matt walked over and stood behind him, looking over his father’s shoulder into the darkening sky.
The garden was silent; nothing moved in the cool evening air.
Matt’s father took a torch from the shelf beside the back door, turned it on and stepped out on to the narrow strip of patio that ran below the kitchen windows. Matt followed, scanning the dark garden for whatever had fallen past his window. Behind him in the kitchen he could hear his mother trying to explain what had happened to the police.
His dad shone the torch in a wide arc across the flowerbeds that bordered the narrow strip of lawn. At the edge of the grass the beam picked out a flash of white.
“Over there,” said Matt. “In the flowerbed.”
“Stay here.”
Matt stood on the patio as his father walked slowly across the threadbare lawn. He inhaled sharply as he reached the edge of the grass.
“What is it?” Matt asked.
No reply. His father just kept staring down into the dark flowerbed.
“Dad? What is it?”
Finally, his father looked round at him. His eyes were wide.
“It’s a girl,” he said, eventually. “It’s a teenage girl.”
“What?”
“Come and look.”
Matt walked across the lawn and looked down into the weed-strewn flowerbed.
The girl was lying on her back in the dirt, half buried by the force of her landing. Her pale face was smeared with blood, and her eyes and mouth were grotesquely swollen. Black hair fanned out around her head like a dark halo, matted with mud and clumped together in bloody strands. Her left arm was obviously broken, her forearm joining her elbow at an unnatural right angle. Her light grey shirt was soaked black with blood, and Matt realised with horror that there was a wide hole in her stomach, along the line of her abdomen. He saw glistening red and purple, and looked away.
“It looks like someone tried to gut her,” his father said quietly.
“What is it, Greg?” shouted Matt’s mother from the kitchen doorway. “What’s happening?”
“Shut up, Lynne,” Greg Browning replied automatically, but his voice was low, and for once he didn’t sound angry.
He sounds scared, thought Matt, and crouched down beside the girl. Despite the damage to her face, she was beautiful, her skin so pale it was almost translucent, her lips a dark, inviting red.
Behind him his father was muttering to himself, looking from the sky to the ground and back again, searching for an explanation for why this girl had fallen into their garden.
Matt placed his hand on the cool skin of her neck, checking for a pulse, knowing he wouldn’t find one.
Who did this to you? he wondered.
The girl opened her swollen right eye and looked straight at Matt. He screamed.
“She’s alive!” he yelled.
“Don’t be stupid,” shouted Greg Browning. “She’s—”
The girl coughed, a deep spluttering rattle that sent new streams of blood running down her chin. She turned her head towards Matt and said something he couldn’t make out.
“My God,” said Matt’s father.
Matt pushed himself up off the grass and slowly approached his father’s side. He looked down at the stricken girl, who was moving her head slowly from side to side, her lips curled back in a grimace of pain.
“We have to do something, Dad,” said Matt. “We can’t leave her like this.”
His father turned on him, his face full of anger.
“What do you want me to do?” he shouted. “The police are on their way, they can deal with it. We shouldn’t even touch her.”
“But Dad—”
Greg Browning’s face twisted with rage and he raised a fist and took a step towards his son. Matt cried out, covering his face with his forearms and turning away.
“You’ll be quiet if you know what’s good for you,” his dad grunted, lowering the fist.
Matt looked at his father, his cheeks flushed red with shame and impotence, his brain alive with hatred. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, when a deafening roar filled the evening air and a squat black helicopter appeared over the trees that stood at the bottom of their suburban garden.
Matt covered his face and did his best to remain upright as the helicopter’s rotors churned the dust and dirt of the garden. He could see his dad shouting but could hear nothing over the thunder of the engines and the shriek of the wind. He craned his neck, his hands shielding his eyes, and watched the helicopter disappear over the roof of their house.
Matt turned and raced towards the house, past his mother who was standing motionless at the back door, through the kitchen and the narrow corridor and towards the front door.
Behind him he could hear his dad shouting his name, but he didn’t slow his pace. He flung the front door open in time to see the black helicopter lowering itself on to the grey tarmac of the road, its rotors whirring above the parked cars that lined their street.
Matt’s dad appeared behind him in the corridor, grabbed his son’s shoulder and spun him around.
“What the hell do you think you’re…”
Greg Browning’s voice trailed off as he stared out into the street. Matt turned and watched as a door slid open in the side of the helicopter and four figures emerged.
The first two were dressed all in black and looked like riot policemen, their uniforms covered with plates of black body armour, their faces hidden beneath black helmets with purple visors.
Both were carrying submachine guns in their gloved hands.
Behind them followed a man and a woman in white biohazard containment suits, their faces visible behind the thick plastic of their masks. Between them they were carrying a white stretcher.
They cleared the helicopter and q
uickly approached Matt and his father. The first of the figures – soldiers, they look like soldiers – stopped in front of them.
“Was an emergency call made from this house?” it asked. The voice was male, and didn’t sound much older than Matt’s.
Neither he nor his dad answered.
The soldier took a step forward.
“Was an emergency call made from this house?”
Terrified, Matt nodded his head.
The black figure turned to the others and beckoned them towards the house, then pushed past Matt and Greg Browning and disappeared into the hallway. The rest of the new arrivals followed, leaving Matt and his father in the doorway. They stood there, staring at the helicopter with no idea what to do, until Matt’s mother started to scream and they turned and ran into the house.
They found her in the kitchen, holding Laura in her arms, the two of them screaming in unison. Greg Browning ran across the room and took his wife in his arms, whispering to her, telling her everything was going to be OK, telling her not to cry. Matt left them by the table and walked out into the garden.
The two soldiers were standing either side of the girl, their guns lodged against their shoulders and pointing at the sky. On the ground, the man and woman in the biohazard suits were examining her.
Matt walked towards them, but before he was close enough to see what they were doing the nearest soldier turned towards him and levelled the black submachine gun at his chest. Matt froze on the spot.
“Please stay where you are, sir,” the soldier said. “For your own safety.”
“What’s going on here?” said a small voice from behind Matt. He was too scared to move, but he craned his head over his shoulder and saw his dad standing on the narrow patio. He looked like someone had deflated him.
“Take your son into the house, sir,” the soldier said.
“I want to know what’s going on,” Matt’s father repeated. “Who are you people?”
“I’m not going to tell you again, sir,” the soldier replied. He sounded as though he was reaching the limit of his patience. “Take your son inside. Now.”
Greg Browning looked like he was going to reply, but thought better of it.
“Come inside, Matt,” he said, eventually.
Matt looked from his father to the soldier pointing the gun at his chest. Behind him he could see the other soldier and the biohazard team watching him. He was about to turn and do as his father said when the girl lifted her head from the flowerbed and sank her teeth into the arm of the man in the white plastic suit.
All hell broke loose.
The man screamed and wrenched his arm out of the girl’s mouth. Blood pumped out of the ragged hole in the plastic, and splashed across the lawn.
The second soldier swung his gun. The heavy stock of the weapon crashed across the girl’s chin, and she instantly stopped moving, as though she had been turned off.
The soldier who had been facing Matt lowered his gun and turned to his colleagues.
“How bad is it?” he yelled.
The woman in the biohazard suit had knelt down next to her partner and was examining the wound. She looked up at the sound of the soldier’s voice.
“It’s bad,” she replied. “We need to get him out of here.”
“Bag the subject,” the soldier said. “Do it quickly.”
“There isn’t time. He needs clean blood, right now.”
“He’ll get it. Bag the subject.”
The woman stared at the soldier for a fraction of second, then let go of her colleague and laid the white stretcher flat on the lawn.
“Help me,” she said to the other soldier.
The soldier crouched down and took hold of the girl under her shoulders and pulled her out of the flowerbed. Matt gasped as he saw the damage to the lower half of the girl’s body.
Both her legs were snapped mid-thigh, the white bones piercing the blood-soaked black skirt she was wearing. Her left foot was horribly twisted at the ankle, and the right was missing three toes, the red stumps bright in the fading light.
Matt ran towards her. He didn’t know what he was going to do, just that he had to do something. He heard his father shout at him, but ignored him. The soldier who had hit the girl with his gun turned, saw him crossing the lawn, and started to move, a shout of warning issuing from his lips. But he wasn’t quick enough; Matt slid on to his knees beside the broken girl and looked at the woman in the biohazard suit.
“Can I hel—”
The girl’s arm flashed out and slid across his throat. Matt felt a millisecond of resistance as her fingernails dug into the smooth skin of his neck, then it was gone, and an enormous spray of something red burst into the night air, soaking his chin and his chest.
There was no pain; just surprise, and a suddenly overwhelming tiredness. Matt stared at the dark liquid squirting into the air, and only realised it was his own blood as he fell gently backwards on to the patchy grass of the lawn. It pattered thickly on to his upturned face, and as his eyes closed he felt hands pressing against his neck, and heard one of the soldiers telling his father that this had never happened.
Chapter 5
INTO THE DARKNESS
Jamie Carpenter dreamt of his father.
When he was ten his dad came home from work, holding his hand under his coat, and disappeared upstairs without saying hello to his son. Jamie’s mother was visiting her sister in Surrey, and after a moment he followed his father, treading on the balls of his feet, taking the steps one at a time, slowly.
Through the half-open bathroom door he saw his father standing with his right hand in the sink. There were spots of red on the mirror and the white porcelain.
Jamie crept across the landing. His father was running the hot tap over his hand, grimacing at the temperature. He turned the tap off and reached for a towel and Jamie saw his hand. There was a long bloody cut running from his wrist to his elbow, and in the middle of the gash something dark was sticking out, dirty brown against the red.
His father dabbed the blood away from the cut and slowly reached into the wound. He gritted his teeth, then pulled the dark object out of his arm, letting out a sharp grunt as it came free. Jamie stared. It looked like a fingernail, more than an inch long, sharp and curved like a talon. A chunk of ragged meat hung from the thick end of the nail, glistening white in the bright light of the bathroom.
He gasped. He hadn’t meant to. His father looked round sharply and Jamie stood rigid, speechless. His father opened his mouth as if to say something, then kicked the bathroom door shut, leaving Jamie standing on the dark landing.
Jamie drifted awake. He was moving, a loud car engine rumbling somewhere behind him, the sound of rain hammering against glass close to his head. He slowly opened his eyes and found himself looking out of a window at a dark forest, the trees blurring as they passed, water tumbling from the sky in sheets. He turned his head to the driver and cried out. Instinctively he reached for the passenger door handle and turned it, not caring what would happen if he jumped from a moving car, just knowing he had to get out, get away from the horror in the seat next to him.
“Don’t bother,” said the driver, his voice so loud that it drowned out the engine. “It’s locked.”
Jamie pressed himself against the door.
In the seat next to him was Frankenstein’s monster.
This is a dream. Isn’t it? It has to be, this can’t be real.
“It’s not polite to stare,” the monster said, and Jamie thought he heard the faintest hint of a laugh under the booming, granite voice.
“Who are you?” Jamie managed, his mind screaming warnings at him. Don’t talk to it! Are you stupid? Just shut up!
“My name is Victor Frankenstein. I did introduce myself. I assume you don’t remember?”
Jamie shook his head, and Frankenstein grunted.
“I suspected as much. Good thing I locked the doors.”
He laughed, a huge sound like a clap of thunder.
“There is only a certain amount I am permitted to tell you,” he continued. “I’m taking you to a safe place. My superior will tell you whatever else he decides you need to know.”
“Who is your superior?” asked Jamie.
No reply.
“I asked you a question,” he repeated, his voice rising. “Did you hear me?”
Frankenstein turned his enormous head and looked at Jamie.
“I heard you,” he said. “I chose not to answer.”
Jamie recoiled, and then the image of the blood on the bedroom windowsill crashed into his head, and he remembered.
“My mother,” he said, his eyes wide. “We have to go back for her.”
Frankenstein shot him a look of concern.
“We can’t go back,” he said. “She’s gone. You know that.”
Jamie fumbled his mobile phone out of his pocket, scrolled through his contacts until he found his mother’s number, keyed the green button and held it to his ear.
Nothing happened.
He pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at the glowing screen. The network logo that usually shone in the middle was gone, as was the bar that indicated the strength of his signal.
“Phones don’t work around here,” said Frankenstein.
Jamie grabbed again at the door handle, wrenching it until the plastic began to bend in his grip.
“Stop that!” roared Frankenstein. “You will be of no help to her if I have to scrape you off the tarmac!”
Jamie turned on the monster, his eyes blazing. “Stop the car!” he yelled. “Stop it right now! I have to help my mum!”
The car didn’t slow, but the huge man in the driver’s seat looked over at him.
“Your mother is gone,” he said, softly. “You may or may not believe me when I tell you I find that fact almost as distressing as you do. But the fact remains; she’s gone. And running around in the dark will not bring her back.”
Jamie stared angrily at the bolts in the huge man’s neck and, not for the first time, his mouth got the better of him.
“I thought Frankenstein was the creator, not the monster,” he muttered.
The brakes of the car squealed, the wheels locked and they slid to a halt. Frankenstein took a deep breath.
