by Ben Stevens
‘Hey – hey!’ yelled George, his sallow face reddening as his beady eyes blazed anger. ‘These are things – things, get it? We’re the survivors – we’re men. And men have needs – ‘to the victors go the spoils of war’.’
‘What the fuck you mean by that?’ demanded Parker, as one of the things groaned and rattled the short chain running from its handcuff to the metal bar along the wall.
‘What ‘war’? We just happened to be immune to this fucking plague that wiped out most of the world; don’t make out like you’re some kind of hero just because you happened to have genetic immunity from the virus – or whatever the fuck it is that caused you, me, and a handful of others not to get sick.’
Parker jabbed one finger at the three scantily-clad, made-up and handcuffed things in the room with the bed, the brick walls all around whitewashed.
‘They got sick – the women there. They were once human, and now – what? You rape them for fun, you sick fuck?’
George’s eyes narrowed as he now intentionally pointed the stun-gun directly at Parker’s head.
‘Okay, you smart son of a bitch,’ he spat, spittle spraying from his thin lips. ‘You think you can come here, eat my food, drink my wine and then mouth off at me? Take your jacket and also that rucksack off, real slowly.’
‘What?’ returned Parker. His rage retreated, now replaced by a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
‘Your jacket and rucksack! Now!’ yelled George, the barrel of his weapon barely two feet from Parker’s forehead. ‘Yeah – you think I didn’t twig a gun was in the inside pocket of that jacket, the moment I saw you?’
His mind turning frantically, Parker began slowly to remove first his rucksack and then his jacket. He knew that George was within a whisker of pulling that trigger. That wouldn’t kill him – but he knew that George would ensure he never woke up again anyhow...
‘Look,’ began Parker carefully, ‘I’ll just go. I – ’
‘Shut the fuck up and get that jacket off, asshole,’ snarled George between gritted teeth. There was still a little ketchup smeared round his lips, from the convivial steak dinner eaten just a short while back...
The jacket removed, Parker let it fall to the floor. It was summer and so he was now wearing just a T-shirt, his left bicep wrapped in the improvised bandage of earlier. George kept him covered, as the security guard moved over to where the bar to which the handcuffs were attached protruded through the metal bars separating one half of this room from the other.
Close to the end of this bar, before a bulky ‘O’-shaped holder attached to the wall, another much smaller, ‘T’-shaped bar of metal ran through a hole drilled through the centre, secured at the protruding end by a bulky padlock.
Still keeping Parker covered, George took a hold of his set of keys hanging from his belt loop and without even looking selected one and undid the padlock.
This fell to the ground – and then George pulled out first the T-shaped length of metal, and then the whole bar through the several O-shaped holders that kept it secured to the wall. The bar fell with a clang on to the concrete floor – and the three things close by the double bed stared stupidly at the handcuffs they wore around one wrist that now weren’t attached to anything else...
‘What are you doing?’ asked Parker, trying to keep his voice steady. But without answering, George again selected another key without even looking and then opened the door set in the barred wall.
‘Get in there,’ he said tonelessly, his back to the door and the stun-gun pointed at Parker.
‘What?’
‘I said get in there, asshole!’ yelled George, his face florid red. He looked set to have a heart attack –
About the only chance I got right now thought Parker distantly.
‘You’re going to let those things...’ – Parker could barely finish the sentence – ‘...eat me?’
‘You wanna get smart, mouth off at me in my own place, you’re gonna pay the price,’ snarled George. ‘No one gets smart with me, you understand? Not my wife, not you – no one.’
George waved the stun-gun in the direction of what was effectively a cell, containing a bed with three things stood near it.
‘You don’t move now,’ said George then, suddenly lowering his voice, ‘I’ll fire this thing straight into your balls. You think you know pain? Uh-uh, buddy – you wait until you get a good old zap right in the nuts.’
Behind George, in the cell, one of the things – the red-haired one – was staring intently at the back of the gray-haired security guard’s head. Then she again stared stupidly down at her left wrist, around which was attached a handcuff. She glanced at the bar that was no longer there, the other handcuff hanging free from the short chain.
Parker could almost read her slow, drudgy, murky thoughts –
I am... free...
She took one shuffling step towards the open door, just outside of which was stood George. Who appeared not to have heard the thing moving.
Parker saw his chance – a slim one, admittedly, but about the only one he had right now.
So start with it – now. Before this fucker George actually moves away from the door, and so forces you inside.
‘Yeah,’ said Parker then, nodding his head as he stared back at George. ‘I knew it from the start...’
George’s enraged expression also momentarily registered confusion.
‘What?’ he said.
...Another slow, almost cautious step towards the open door. And now the two other things were taking notice...
Parker nodded again, and gave a sigh. He allowed himself to display a slightly mocking smile.
‘Started way back in school, didn’t it?’ he continued. ‘The nicknames – “Georgy Two-nose’, ‘Mole-man’ – shit like that. Even the teachers snickering away behind their hands, sometimes. And every time you talked to someone, you just knew they were trying to ignore that big old brown lump growing right on one side of your nose...’
‘You son of a...’ hissed George. His finger seemed to tighten slightly on the trigger, his eyes burning hate at Parker but also somehow...
Captivated...?
...The red-haired thing took another step. He’d better start talking quick, loud, cover up the sound of her footsteps. The other two things starting to follow her. The three of them so close to the security guard – and yet also so far. That finger could pull that trigger any moment now... and then it surely would be all over...
‘...’Course,’ continued Parker, head still nodding slightly and that faintly mocking smile fixed in place, ‘by the time you got old enough to get interested in girls, you knew fully damn well that that thing growing on one side of your face wasn’t going to do you any favors, as regards the opposite sex.
‘Wasn’t even as though you had much else to show off. Kind of weak jaw... mouth like a gopher... skinny body... So you just watched as all the jocks in the class got the real quality girls, and you were left trying to ask out whoever was left. And even they – bad teeth, no tits, spotty skin and the rest – pretty much turned up their noses at you.’
Parker uttered a short laugh, and shook his head in apparent disbelief.
‘Shit, man – even them,’ he repeated.
George was now trembling furiously, a slight foam around his lips. But he was viewing Parker with an expression almost of horrified fascination.
...How was he not hearing the shuffling footsteps of those things slowly creeping up behind him? Please God they didn’t moan or make any other noise – but then, if they did and thus caused George to turn sharply round, that would be when Parker would have to strike...
...As George’s thin, trembling finger began tightening on the trigger again, Parker said quickly –
‘But then you met her...’
The pressure on the trigger eased, George continuing to observe the man wearing the torn, bloody trousers with an expression of utter loathing mixed with that curious air of horrified fascination.
&
nbsp; ‘Yeah... She was nothing special, but – what the hell? A woman’s a woman, right? Was hardly like you were in a position to be choosy, after all.
‘You took her out to the pictures and such, made out there in the back row – finally got to stick your dick in something other than your closed right hand. So you thought you’d better get a ring on her finger, real quick, so that she’d stay yours.’
Parker took a deep breath, aware that – for the moment – he had George captivated. Parker was almost disturbed himself by how accurately he was reading George’s past; but it was keeping him alive right now and maybe long enough for one of those things who were moving so fucking slowly to get a hold of George and...
Whatever – whatever they did, just so long as it stopped Parker getting hit with a jolt from that stun gun...
‘’Course,’ continued Parker, ‘soon as you were hitched, the fairytale ended. That was when she showed herself to be the Queen-bitch she truly was. Soon had you working all hours, just to get all the things she wanted. Nice TV, sofa, bed, fitted kitchen and all the rest.
‘And then you got this job’ – Parker’s voice ran remorselessly on – ‘and one morning you got back home and the Queen-bitch is looking slightly flushed, and curiously kind of happy.
‘’Course, you know straight away what the cause of that is – someone’s been giving her a good seeing-to. A better seeing-to than you could ever manage, anyhow.’
‘You fucking...’ began George.
One more pace and the red-headed thing was on him. Opening her mouth and exposing her teeth now. Please please please don’t snarl or make any sort of noise before you...
‘But you didn’t dare confront her, did you? Instead you just retreated into your little fantasy world in this place. Finding a room you could jack-off in during your shift to magazines and DVDs. Then returning home each morning and facing her almost triumphant stare... that smile... mocking you...
‘You poor, sad bastard...’
Emitting what was almost a whine, George thrust the stun gun even closer to Parker’s face and made to pull the trigger...
...But in that spilt-second, the red-headed she-thing sank her teeth deep into one side of the security guard’s neck. He emitted a scream as her mouth came away with a large chunk of his flesh in it. Blood spurted out in jets as George sank to the floor on his knees, emitting a series of hoarse cries as his life fluid began quickly to drain out.
He dropped the stun-gun when he’d got bit, and now Parker kicked it away from out of his reach. He watched dispassionately as the red-haired thing fell upon the screaming man, closely followed by the two other, blonde- and brown-haired things. Sufferers of a horrific disease that had caused them to return as some sort of nightmare from beyond the grave, before being captured, dressed up in bra and panties and then made up to serve as sex-slaves for this sad asshole living in his self-made fortress...
Without a trace of compassion, Parker picked his jacket and rucksack up and put them back on. Then he turned and left the room, walking back along the corridor towards the rungs set in the wall that led up to the open metal hatch. He heard George calling to him with his last, dying breaths, begging for help.
Pleas which Parker completely ignored, until he suddenly remembered –
‘Shit,’ he said, with feeling.
He turned and walked back into the room that now had half its floor covered with blood. George looked dead, his eyes closed, as the three things gnawed away at three different parts of his body.
‘I need his keys,’ Parker told them simply. He pointed at the bunch hanging off George’s belt-loop. ‘That’s all. If you can understand me just slightly, just let me get his keys. I’ve got a gun and I could shoot you all in the head but I really don’t want to do that. Really.
‘So just let me do what I’ve got to do and I’ll leave all the inside doors open for you up above, so you’ve got a chance of getting out, too.’
The brunette snarled and began to rise. But the red-haired thing hissed and struck out at her... and then the red-haired thing directed her red-flecked gaze at Parker, her lip-sticked mouth and chin heavily stained with blood.
There was absolutely nothing Parker could read in that gaze: it was flat –
Dead.
Parker held the gaze as he slowly knelt down and extended one hand towards the blood-stained bunch of keys. The three things were breathing heavily, all of them watching his every movement. The atmosphere was tense – and yet curiously Parker did not feel much danger. Not nearly as much as he had when the madman with the large mole on one side of his nose had been pointing that stun-gun at him, anyway...
A vague sense of authority seemed to emanate from the red-haired thing – and ‘she’ had clearly forbidden any attack on Parker.
Why? thought Parker. Out of some sort of sense of – gratitude?
He fumbled briefly with the key-lock, trying to open the sliding clip with his thumb, but then stood back up holding the bunch of keys. The three things continued to crouch around the bleeding, bitten body of the security guard. The man with whom Parker had clinked glasses, and eaten a steak dinner, less than an hour before...
Parker looked at the red-headed thing; the only one of the three things who was continuing to look at him. Unlike the other two, who’d quickly resumed their noisy consumption of George’s body.
‘Thank you,’ said Parker quietly, nodding at the red-haired thing dressed like the two others in the white bra and panties. ‘Thank you.’
A moment’s pause; and then the thing replied –
‘Shhank... you.’
And for a moment, Parker almost saw sincerity flare in those red-flecked eyes. This was something the thing actually wanted to say – not just some hissed words vaguely recalled from its life of before...
Maybe – it was possible Parker was reading too much into this situation.
But she stopped one of the other things from attacking me... and I saved her, and the others, from getting raped anymore by this asshole...
Again, Parker turned and left the room. Along the corridor to the steel rungs leading upwards.
Of course – he realized now. It didn’t matter in the slightest if he left the doors on the factory’s ground floor open or not. Because the things wouldn’t be able to climb this ladder in the first place. They lacked even that necessary amount of body coordination – this Parker knew already.
But Parker needed to get outside – away from this place – now. So he took a hold of the metal rungs with his hands, and began to climb.
There was the almost childlike sensation of being trapped in some endless nightmare, as Parker tried to find his way back along the wide, empty, ill-lit corridors to an exit – any exit. Frequently there were metal doors in his way but, fortunately, these all opened with the same key hanging from the bloodstained bunch. The same key Parker had seen George use only a short time earlier.
At one point Parker thought that he was passing the door that led into George’s apartment; but he couldn’t be sure. Everything looked the same, miles of corridors; he was trapped and would just go on walking forever until he...
Parker’s rising feeling of panic was checked when he came to one door which didn’t open with the usual key. He tried several others, until purely by luck he selected the right one. The door opened and there he was back out in the still of the night.
This wasn’t the door through which he’d entered into this warehouse. The door which George had thrown open for him while the things clawed and gnawed at the chainmail fence round the other side of the sprawling building.
At least, Parker didn’t think it was the same door. Kind of hard to tell, really...
He was exhausted and sort of in a state of shock, he realized murkily. He needed to rest up – really rest up – as a matter of urgency. Couldn’t see or hear any things around, though – as experience had taught him – that sure didn’t mean he could afford to be complacent.
But he knew one thing,
now; something which had clearly taken the dead rapist named George by surprise. Namely, that even if he got bit by a thing, he still wouldn’t transform into one himself. Plenty of people had been immune to the actual virus in the air, it seemed; but if they’d got bitten by a thing, as so many had, then they’d inevitably become one of the hissing, boil-covered creatures of nightmare...
Parker didn’t walk far before he came to the chainmail fence which surrounded this entire factory. It was high, and topped with barbed wire. No way of climbing it, then; but Parker still had the bunch of keys and soon enough he came to a padlocked door set in the fence. This he opened after a few tries with various keys and he was back out in the sprawling industrial plant.
He walked for approximately half an hour past the great black slabs of buildings either side of him, the moon glowing white in the purple sky. His ears instinctively listening out for any sound that would alert him to any danger. His eyes never still, probing the shadowy depths of this silent moonlit night. His nerves stretched close to breaking, as indeed they always were. It was a requirement, he found, for remaining alive.
Finally he saw what he was looking for. A ladder running up the side of one building. The rungs didn’t come down all the way to the ground; the ladder started at about the height of Parker’s shoulders. It seemed to go up a long way. Further than Parker could see in the dark, anyhow.
Things couldn’t climb ladders. Which was a shame for the three female things who’d been captive in George’s rape-basement, because they’d be forced to remain as captives. Although they were at least now spared George’s vile attentions.
But it was good news for Parker. He could head up there knowing that he was safe from at least one major threat in this post-apocalyptic world. He might still get attacked by birds, creeping rats or even the odd zoo-escaped orangutan (one thing Parker had learnt – never discount anything as being impossible); but from the things, at least, he was safe. (Always assuming, of course, that they weren’t just waiting up wherever he was headed already, having merely taken a different route. Things didn’t have any trouble with stairs, after all...)
