Crawlers

by Sam Enthoven

  10:10 PM.

  The door to the monitor room was solid and fitted well in its frame: when Ben had closed it behind him Jasmine was sealed off from the rest of the group. For the first time, she was alone. Her shoulders sagged with relief.

  She did feel a little bad about kicking Ben out. OK, she admitted to herself, maybe more than a little. But the silence of his absence felt blissful. For a few minutes at least she didn’t have to put up a front any more. At last she could give in to what she was really feeling.

  For more than two hours now Jasmine had been busying her mind with what was happening, working out what to do about it. She’d made herself concentrate on each moment as it came, examining every detail, wringing out all the information she could. It had been a good strategy, because behind all that cool analysis her ears still rang with screams.

  Jasmine was scared. Horribly, desperately scared.

  This wasn’t, she knew, a question of cowardice or weakness. While it was true that the boys – or Josh, Hugo and Ben at any rate – seemed, on the outside, to be relatively unfazed by their situation, Jasmine knew that wasn’t because they were stronger than her. It was because they weren’t thinking clearly.

  They believed they were going to be rescued – that it was only a question of waiting. This comforting certainty had taken the place of any further rational examination of the situation. Jasmine could see why: the possibility that they weren’t going to be rescued was too grim to contemplate.

  She looked at the time-code at the corner of the nearest monitor. If the evening had gone according to schedule the play would be nearing its end. Before much longer, she and Ms Gresham and the other girls would have been on their way home. The gulf between that outcome and what had actually taken place seemed impossible to reconcile.

  How had it happened? How had she ended up trapped with a load of kids she hardly knew while the rest of the building went mad? What were the crawlers? Where had they come from? Why was this happening to them?

  Sudden movement on the monitors snapped her out of her reverie.

  No less than four police vans had arrived: the feed from the camera that covered the Barbican’s main entrance was flickering with their revolving lights. As Jasmine watched, the vans’ doors slid back, spilling out black-clad men in helmets carrying batons and shields.

  Riot police.

  Jasmine reached forward and started punching buttons on the console in front of the monitors. Obediently their contents began to change and swap as they showed the feeds from different cameras all over the building. The view of the frozen sentries out in the passageway vanished, settling instead on one she hadn’t seen before: this camera must be positioned on the foyer ceiling. It looked down on a spot not far from the main street entrance.

  At first the police were visible only as a growing shadow against the glass. But not for long. Two of them shoulder-charged the doors, then they all burst into the foyer. They locked shields and formed a phalanx, batons raised.

  It was weird seeing the scene unfold in silence – scarier, somehow. There were maybe thirty riot police on the screen but all Jasmine could hear was the sound of her own breathing.

  She got halfway out of the chair to tell the others what was happening – but then she noticed more movement on another of the monitors. A hard ball of ice-cold fear formed in her chest.

  ‘Oh, no . . .’ she whispered.

  On one, two, three of the screens now Jasmine could see people sneaking into position, massing in the foyer’s surrounding passages. Each one of them moved with eerie precision, following exactly the footsteps of the person in front of them. Each had an indistinct but unmistakable shape on the back of their neck.

  At the same time Jasmine noticed a strange, spreading blur on the stretch of concrete wall over the main doors – over the heads of the police. This wasn’t something wrong with the screen: it was more crawlers.

  The police were walking into another trap. And there was no way to warn them.

  All at once, baring their teeth in identical snarls of rage, hundreds of people burst from their hiding places and charged at the ring of riot police from all directions.

  Jasmine watched in silence.

  Ordinary men and women – middle-class, culture-loving adults dressed in suits and dresses and overcoats and cardigans – were now storming across the carpeted foyer like ravening beasts. The police barely had time to brace themselves before the first of them crunched into the ring of shields, which vanished under a scrum of pressing bodies, screaming faces and flailing, grasping limbs.

  The police apparently couldn’t quite bring themselves to hit their opponents. Instead they held their sticks crosswise to try to fend off the crowd. But their circle squeezed inexorably inward. Slowly they were being pushed back.

  When they were in range, the crawlers dropped on them.

  One by one, the police stopped fighting and started slapping at themselves. An officer in the centre suddenly froze in place, standing completely rigid before collapsing.

  Then the ring of shields broke. The crowd surged through.

  Again, it happened very fast. One or two black-clad figures remained standing for a few seconds more, brandishing their batons, but threats, even blows, had no effect. In moments all the hapless riot cops were on the floor – forced to the ground and held down while the crawlers did their work. The crowd piled on top of them, grabbing arms and legs, yanking off helmets. Soon the last of the invaders was subdued.

  Now, at last, the crowd pulled back. Their frenzy was gone. Their hands had stopped clutching and flailing and grabbing, and had fallen to their sides. Now they were waiting.

  One by one the fallen riot police got up again. One by one – eyes glassy and staring, movements awkward and puppet-like at first – they joined the surrounding crowd. Without speaking, or even acknowledging each other, the crowd dispersed. Pausing only to pick up the discarded shields, helmets, armour and other equipment that were the only evidence of the battle that had just taken place, they set off in the various directions from which they had come.

  The screens emptied of people, leaving bare carpet and deserted corridors.

  So much for getting rescued.

  10:22 PM.

  ‘Here,’ said Samantha suddenly as the music continued. ‘Can you smell something?’

  While Ben, Robert, Josh and Hugo sniffed the air, Lisa stopped rocking herself.

  ‘No,’ said Josh.

  ‘What?’ said Ben. He noticed that Lauren had started smiling.

  ‘There’s a weird smell in here,’ said Samantha. ‘Seriously. I think it’s getting stronger.’

  ‘What kind of smell?’ said Hugo.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Samantha, ‘but I think it smells a bit like . . . wee.’

  Lauren made a snorking sound in her nose, then burst out laughing.

  Samantha sniffed once, then grimaced. ‘Yeah,’ she said, nod-ding, ‘there’s a definite whiff of wee in here. Can’t you smell it?’

  The boys looked at each other uncertainly.

  ‘It’s almost,’ said Samantha, ‘as if someone’s wet themselves.’

  She turned, casting a suspicious glance at everyone in the room – before finally, exaggeratedly, settling on Lisa.

  Under her fringe of hair Lisa jerked her face to one side as if she’d been slapped.

  Lauren laughed like a hyena.

  Ben frowned. He really couldn’t smell anything. But then, of course, he realized . . .

  ‘Has anyone wet themselves?’ asked Samantha. ‘No?’ she added with heavy emphasis when nobody answered. ‘Oh. Then it must be you, Lisa.’

  Lisa said nothing, just sat frozen on her chair.

  Samantha started to smile – the kind of smile a cat might make while torturing a mouse.

  ‘Lisa has these accidents sometimes,’ she said. ‘She doesn’t mean to, but she just can’t help it. It’s a bit embarrassing, so don’t be mean to her about it, but I thought you boys should know. I
f something starts to smell a bit pissy in here, don’t worry. It’s only Lisa.’

  Ben and the other boys said nothing. What could they say? Ben felt his face going red and he didn’t know where to look. The worst thing was, he knew that the lack of reaction would make poor Lisa think that everyone was taking Samantha’s words at face value.

  The song from Samantha’s phone came to an end. There was a short and terrible silence then Lisa stood up, clasping her school bag in front of her. She walked to the door of the monitor room.

  There was no smell. Ben noticed nothing as Lisa went past. But—

  ‘Funny,’ said Samantha as the music started up again. ‘The smell’s not so strong now.’

  Lauren laughed until her eyes were wet with tears.

  10:24 PM.

  Jasmine heard a burst of laughter and music, which was muffled to silence again as the door snicked shut behind her. She turned.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, surprised. ‘Hi, Lisa. What’s going on?’

  Lisa just shook her head.

  Jasmine looked at her. It was obvious what had happened: Samantha and Lauren had been pulling their routines on Lisa ever since Jasmine had known them. But she, like Ben, had sat silent when it first happened, and now too much time had passed: if she said anything about it to Lisa now it would look too much like pity, and that, Jasmine knew, might make things even worse.

  ‘You just missed something big,’ she said instead, as casually as she could, turning in the chair and gesturing at the monitors as Lisa came up behind her. ‘Riot police actually baton-charged the place a minute ago, but you’d never know to look at it out there now . . .’

  She glanced back at Lisa – and froze.

  Lisa’s right hand, Jasmine saw, had just come out of her school bag. The hand was holding the missing crawler – one of the ones that had been stepped on earlier. Lisa’s fingers were clasped firmly around its partially crushed body, and the creature’s legs were twitching and pulsing with what was definitely some kind of life.

  Jasmine gaped.

  Behind her curtain of hair Lisa’s glassy eyes narrowed. Realizing she’d been caught, her thin lips parted in a silent snarl of fury. She dropped the bag and her left hand loomed in Jasmine’s vision: the hand clamped over Jasmine’s mouth, fingers digging into her cheeks, stifling her scream before she’d even thought to utter one.

  With her right hand, the one holding the crawler, Lisa lunged.

  Jasmine flung up her own hands, catching hold of Lisa’s wrist. She was almost too late: the twitching creature was just centimetres from her face. Its five legs – broken and disjointed but hideously eager – grasped for her. Twin needles of bone, glistening with fluid, flickered in and out from the crawler’s centre mass. For a long second Jasmine managed to hold Lisa there, keeping her off. Then, snarl widening into a grin of triumph, Lisa pushed harder.

  It was all happening so fast, Jasmine barely had time to be frightened. Even now, as she fought, the analytical part of her mind coldly noted the grim reality of the situation: Lisa’s surprise attack had, essentially, worked. She had the drop on Jasmine, who was twisted round on her seat. Lisa, standing behind her, could bear down on her victim with her whole bodyweight. Jasmine resisted with all her strength but it was hopeless: Lisa’s left hand was clawing at her face and the right, with its grisly burden, was coming closer.

  Jasmine slid down on the chair, which revolved and dumped her, still clasping Lisa’s wrists, onto the floor. But Lisa just came with her, bending over her, forcing the crawler down towards her.

  Jasmine’s blood hammered in her ears. Her vision narrowed. Her world closed in around the creature until there was nothing else left.

  With a last, desperate effort, she kicked out at the door.

  10:25 PM.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Ben, over the sound of more music from Samantha’s phone.

  ‘What was what, now?’ Josh asked back, annoyed.

  ‘I thought I heard something.’

  ‘I’m surprised anyone can hear anything with this racket,’ grumbled Hugo.

  ‘No, really,’ said Ben. ‘There was a thump. I think it came from next door. I’m going to check on Jasmine.’

  ‘I’ll bet,’ said Samantha, and Lauren snorked again – which distracted Ben for a crucial second as he got the door open.

  ‘Whoa,’ he managed.

  From Ben’s perspective Lisa and Jasmine were lying across the doorway, one on top of the other. Lisa’s face twisted round: her curtain of hair parted and her staring eyes met his. Without pausing her attack on Jasmine for a moment, she let out a screech.

  ‘Eeeeeeeeeeeh!’

  ‘Oh crap!’ said Ben.

  Numbly, his movements feeling horribly slow and uncertain, he grabbed for Lisa’s arm, her right, the one holding the crawler – and pulled.

  Lisa’s arm was small and thin but her muscles felt like steel hawsers. Ben heaved back, and succeeded in lifting the crawler away from Jasmine a little, but even with her upward force added to his own he was fighting Lisa for every millimetre. She was still shrieking: her head thrashed from side to side, whipping flecks of foaming spittle in all directions.

  ‘Uh, help?’ said Ben.

  ‘Get out of the way!’ Hugo bellowed back, shouldering past him through the narrow doorway.

  Ben, knocked sideways, lost his grip. But now, for once, Hugo was taking charge. He bent down, hooked his beefy arms under Lisa’s, and – with a strength that left Ben staring – hauled the struggling girl upright, off Jasmine, and back through the door into the main room.

  ‘Grab her arms,’ he grunted as he lowered Lisa to the floor. Robert and Josh did as he said, pinning them out from her body. Still Lisa struggled. Still she twitched and thrashed and bucked. Ben just stared.

  ‘Get on her legs, Ben!’ warned Hugo, snapping him out of it. ‘Sit on ’em. Quick!’

  When the four boys had finally managed to restrain Lisa, there was a pause.

  ‘So,’ Jasmine asked Ben shakily, from beside him. ‘You still don’t believe me about a traitor in the group?’

  Ben just looked at her.

  Jasmine could have milked the moment. She could have made more of being proved right, and how much danger she’d just been in. But crowing wasn’t her style.

  ‘Are you all right, Jasmine?’ asked Hugo, before Ben remembered to do so – making Ben feel like even more of a spare part than he did already.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Jasmine lied, feeling her face and wondering if the marks of Lisa’s fingers were still visible. Then she noticed that everyone was looking at her again.

  ‘Well,’ she added, gathering herself with an effort, ‘first things first . . .’

  Both Hugo and Robert were kneeling on Lisa’s right arm, keeping the arm straight out from her body, but the hand still held its burden: the crawler’s legs were still twitching.

  ‘There was a bin in here earlier,’ said Jasmine, snapping her fingers. ‘That rubbish bin, the metal one – anyone seen it?’

  ‘Here,’ said Robert, pointing. Hugo nodded to indicate he had Lisa’s arm under control himself for now, so Robert stood up, grabbed the bin, and made to pass it to Jasmine.

  ‘OK,’ said Jasmine. ‘Robert, isn’t it?’

  Robert nodded.

  ‘Turn the bin upside-down and put it over Lisa’s hand – the one with the crawler. Quickly now. We don’t want her suddenly trying to throw it at us or something.’

  Looking extremely dubious, Robert did as Jasmine asked, squatting down on the floor. Now the rim of the metal bin lay against Lisa’s wrist. Lisa’s hand and the crawler were concealed beneath it. All the while Lisa’s head continued to lash from side to side.

  ‘That’s good, Robert, thank you,’ said Jasmine. ‘Now, no matter what happens next, I want you to be ready and watching. If Lisa lets go – if the crawler even tries to escape – I want you to trap it and make sure it doesn’t get out. OK?’

  Robert nodded again.

  ‘
All right,’ said Jasmine wearily, ‘then I guess it’s time to find out if the rest of my theory was true too.’

  Except for the snarling sounds that Lisa was still making, the room was now silent. Everyone in the group was either staring at Lisa or watching Jasmine, hanging on whatever she was going to say next.

  ‘I need a volunteer,’ she announced. ‘Samantha? Lauren? It’s got to be one of you.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Josh.

  ‘We have to assume that what’s happened to Lisa isn’t her fault. We’ve got to treat her with whatever respect we can. Because now . . .’ Jasmine paused. ‘Now we’ve got to search her.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Samantha, stepping forward.

  Lisa froze. She fixed Samantha with a stare, bared her teeth, and her snarling sank to a low growl in her throat.

  ‘Where do I start?’ Samantha asked.

  Jasmine bit her lip. But it had to be done. ‘Lisa’s blouse,’ she said. ‘Open it from the bottom buttons first. But carefully,’ she emphasized. ‘We don’t know what you might find.’

  Samantha nodded. Reaching a hand to either side of Lisa’s waist she tugged at the blouse, gently untucking the white material until it came free of the waistband of Lisa’s pleated grey school skirt. Then she unfastened the bottom button.

  And stopped.

  ‘Oh,’ said Lauren, looking down over Samantha’s shoulder. ‘Oh, that’s just . . . wrong.’

  The blouse had parted to reveal, not Lisa’s stomach, but something else. Its rubbery, semi-translucent flesh was a parody of Lisa’s skin. Its long legs with their thin lines of red at the joints quivered slightly, as if it knew that its secret had been discovered.

  It was another crawler, squatting on Lisa’s belly.

  10:31 PM.

  Ben – still sitting on Lisa’s legs – stared at the creature, utterly revolted. He thought of the way Lisa had been behaving earlier in the evening when he’d last noticed her: the way she’d been rocking back and forth, her arms wrapped around herself. Herself, and the thing that controlled her.