by Ian Woodhead
At last he stopped as they came to a tall green wall. The tramp wasn’t even out of breath.
“We would have got here a lot sooner, Arthur, if you hadn’t gone and pulled that hissy fit!”
He did wonder how long it would take before the arrogance would creep back into his voice. Arthur resisted the temptation to tell him to piss off.
The tramp waved his hand across the wall, yellow vines and other plant life receded, revealing a bright red painted shop door and a sign in the window displaying the opening times.
The tramp giggled at Arthur’s shocked looking face.
“You look like a dead fish with your gob open like that!” He turned the handle, pushed open the door and walked in. Arthur hurried in after him before the plant life had time to seal the entrance.
He gazed open-mouthed at the sight before him. After spending a full day at being dragged through a hostile jungle and seeing all traces of civilisation erased by the greenery, he never thought he’d live to see normality ever again. Arthur wasn’t ashamed to admit that he felt himself filling up.
“I’ve surprised the hell out of you with this, haven’t I?” the tramp laughed.
They were in a darkened shop, untouched by the taint of the aggressive vegetation. It was the town’s only charity shop.
Arthur wandered amongst the white shelves packed with other people’s unwanted items, the glow cast by the dozens of lit candles scattered around the shop giving the place an almost holy feel. He picked up a porcelain figurine of a ballet dancer, thinking of the fate that may have befallen its last owner.
The image of Polly’s tortured face asking him to kill her slid from his subconscious to the front of his mind. Arthur placed the figurine back on the shelf, next to a set of china cutlery and silently vowed that he would find out who was responsible for this and cut their fucking head off.
“It’s the Applewood Hospice shop. The only place in this damned town that welcomed me back after my six year absence.”
Arthur knew where he was; he didn’t need a tramp to act as a tour guide in his own town.
A space had been cleared in the middle of the shop to make room for two blue plastic chairs. Between them lay an upturned washing basket with a kettle and two cups placed on top. Ernest sat down and urged the reluctant Arthur to do the same.
“I was too late to save Mrs Harding. Shame that, considering how nice she’d been to me.” His face crunched up in disgust. “Unlike every other fucker who treated me like a pariah.”
“What happened to her?”
The tramp shrugged. “Dunno, she wasn’t here when I arrived so I guess that she was at home when this happened. As for what happened to her, just use your imagination - now will you please sit the fuck down?”
He poured boiling water into two cups. “You’ve seen what happens with the spiders?”
Arthur nodded his head. “Where the hell did they come from?”
“They’re us, you idiot. Haven’t you worked that out yet? Well, not us specifically, but the younger lot definitely.” He continued pouring. “If the demons got her then they would have killed her, raped her then eaten the body - and if she was really lucky, they would have done it in that order.”
Arthur winced in disgust. This cold hearted bastard was talking about her death like he was having a chat about the bloody weather!
Ernest’s head snapped up, spilling boiling water on the makeshift table. “I’m not cold hearted!”
“How did you know what I was thinking?” Arthur gasped.
The tramp shrugged. “I don’t know, I just do. Now are you going to sit down before I really lose my temper?”
Arthur didn’t want the bloody tea now; he didn’t want anything from this creep. He tried to empty his mind and backed away while the tramp just sat there, smiling. He blinked then found himself sitting opposite Ernest with an empty cup in his hand.
“What the fuck?” He tried to get up but found he couldn’t move a muscle. The tramp leaned forward.
“I lied about the bacon butty, but I guess you’ve already figured that bit out, haven’t you? But as you are now being such a good boy, I can give you a couple of answers you so desperately crave…”
He took the cup out of Arthur’s unresponsive hands and put it besides his. The tramp’s cup was still full; it wasn’t tea in there either, more like dark green melted ice-cream.
The kettle had gone; he doubted that it had even been there in the first place.
“Stop struggling,” Ernest said. “It won’t do you any good, there’s no chance you’ll be able to move. All you are doing is pissing me off. Relax; I’m not going to hurt you.”
Arthur decided there and then that whether he had anything to do with what was happening in Holburn or not, he was still going to wring the scrawny bastard’s neck. He was humming the theme tune to the Magic Roundabout as loud as he could inside his head so he could keep his murderous thoughts guarded. Nothing he could do about it now anyway, not when the fucker had him helpless like a newborn baby.
“Okay, so you have me trussed up like an oven ready chicken. Now what? Are you going to kill me?”
The tramp dipped his finger into the green gloop and flicked the stuff onto the laundry basket. It ate through the plastic leaving a black, bubbling hole. Had that stuff gone down his neck or was the tramp playing with his mind again?
“Okay. At least tell me what the hell has happened to the town.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the tramp giggled. “I just remembered that bit you thought about killing the person responsible for this.”
He tapped Arthur on the nose. “Well, all this started because of what you did many years ago. I bet you don’t remember you and your other fuckwit friend chasing me through Holburn woods do you?”
“Never mind that,” Arthur whispered.
“Funny that, ‘cos I think about it nearly every day.”
Arthur wanted to know where he was going with all this.
“Now, I know that it was Dave Chambers who would have instigated the chase and you would have only gone along because you was scared shitless of him and thought that he’d beat you up if you didn’t go with him.”
Arthur kept quiet, whether or not the chase happened was undecided but he did remember what Dave was like as a kid and he had that observation spot on. Arthur remembered very clearly what Dave used to do when anyone refused his requests.
“But this is me thinking as an adult. At the time, all I saw were two boys, a lot older than me, chasing me and threatening to kill me.”
“Give over. Dave might have been a bit high spirited when he was a kid but he would have never hurt anyone.”
“You mean like the sheep?”
“For crying out loud man, what that got to do with anything? We were just kids, doing what kids have always done.”
“I was only eleven and this whole town made my life an absolute misery.” He pushed the full cup a little closer to him. “But that all changed on that day you two went after me. You see, thanks to people like Dave fuckwit Chambers, I was used to getting chased and I was fairly sure that I could outrun a pair of lumbering idiots but I wasn’t looking where I was going and I ended up tripping over a rock jutting out of the ground. The earth opened up and swallowed me, at least that’s what it felt like as I tumbled down.”
He rolled up his sleeve and showed a jagged scar running from his elbow to his wrist.
“Don’t be too concerned. I landed in a deep pile of rotting leaves, but I must have cut myself on something on the way down. Now I thought that you two would have just ran on by and left me down there to die,” He pushed the cup a little closer.
“But you didn’t did you? Two tiny faces peered over the top, shouting down and asking me if I was alright. If you had left me there to die then none of this would have happened.”
“Do you really think that you’d we would have left you down there? What a sad, pathetic, spiteful little man you are.”
The tramp lunged at
Arthur and snatched hold of his jumper with his gnarly hands.
“Don’t you give me that condescending high horse morality bullshit speech. What do you know about anything? Living in your nice safe house and leading your quiet dull boring life. I know that you couldn’t give a shit about some minor incident that happened over fifty years ago.”
Some feeling was returning to the tips of his fingers. He kept his face expressionless and his mind blank. He didn’t want this joker to read his intentions. Hopefully, the fool would be so wrapped up in the telling of his stupid tale to notice that his captive audience would soon be no longer his captive.
“Cat got your tongue has it?” He sat back down and put his hands behind his head. “Anyway, while you two were shouting out my name - and, I might add blubbering like babies - I decided to do a bit of exploring. Apart from the cut on my arm, I was unharmed. It’s amazing just how calm I felt, the sight of blood, especially my own used to send me into a blind panic. Yet I stood there, watching my life fluid drip off my arm and splash onto the stone and I didn’t care, and you know what? When the blood touched the floor it just soaked into the stone leaving no trace.”
This was bullshit. If he was in an abandoned mine shaft or cavern then it would’ve been pitch black down there.
“I found myself in a small stone room, cube shaped it was and despite the only natural light source seeming to be the hole I fell down, I could see fine. Oh and the walls were covered in bizarre and complicated patterns.”
The tramp shut his eyes and smiled as if he was reliving the experience.
“They’re called fractal patterns nowadays, if that word means anything to you.”
“Then what?”
He opened his eyes. “You two helped me out.”
“Is that it?”
“It was for you two. I kept asking you about the incident at school but you didn’t remember. One good thing came out of it though, everybody left me alone, and then a week later the dreams started.” The tramp’s features changed. This time he genuinely looked tormented. “My blood gave those stones life, gave me gifts that I couldn’t control.”
“What about the demons?”
The tramp ignored him. It was as if he wasn’t there. Arthur now had up to his elbow back under his control, another couple of minutes and Arthur hoped the tramp would be on his back and choking on the blood gushing from his nose.
“I’d awakened something that had been sealed away for millions of years. Something that wouldn’t be satisfied with just a few drops of my blood.”
“That’s bullshit; humans weren’t around millions of years ago.”
“I know that, you tosser. This thing wasn’t built on our fucking planet” The tramp was on his feet now, pacing around the shop. “It was trying to tempt me with pretty baubles in return for more of my blood.”
Arthur decided to forgo the waiting process and grab him now; he couldn’t take anymore of this insane drivel. The man was off his rocker. He crunched his hand into a fist; it was the only weapon he was going to need against that scrawny bag of bones. The drug in the cup must be losing its potency as he could feel the strength racing into his upper arm. Oh, he was so going to enjoy the feeling of the tramp’s face caving in.
“Oi! What the hell are you doing? You dirty, sneaky bastard!” He raced over, Arthur waited up until the last minute before he swung his arm. Ernest fell to the floor and rolled safely away. Arthur screamed, the tramp was a walking dead man, he needed his stick. He brought his big meaty fist down on the makeshift table; the contents flew onto the floor, except for the green stuff in the cup, which settled over his hand like thick glue.
“What the hell?”
He tried to wipe the stuff onto the plastic chair but it just moved out of the way.
“Time to take your second lot of medicine…”
It rolled up Arthur’s arm and onto his shoulder. He shut his mouth and clamped his teeth together; the stuff was trying to slide between his lips.
“It can’t be denied entry, Arthur.”
The vile gelatinous mess bifurcated when it found the lips to be impenetrable; instead it eagerly sought out less obvious routes. Arthur squealed when he saw its intentions and slammed his hand over one of his ears but the gesture was pointless as the stuff just slithered through the cracks in his fingers and flowed into his ear; the rest of it found his nostrils.
He finally opened his mouth and screamed himself raw. A thousand miles away, hysterical laughter drifted into his undamaged ear. The pain was unlike anything he had ever experienced, each nerve cell scraped open then plunged into boiling oil. His agony then vanished as the stuff’s extended follicles found his brain and pumped his body full of endorphins.
Arthur sighed with pleasure. He closed his eyes and relaxed.
“Is that any better?”
The tramp crouched down beside him and gently stroked his cheek. Arthur trembled and sobbed when the tramp removed his hand.
“Oh, you like that do you?”
His new friend had succeeded in flushing out all those rebellious thoughts, replacing them with a languid feeling of contentment. Arthur felt just fine.
The tramp sat back down.
“You really are a naughty boy for not wanting your other medicine. You know that don’t you?”
Arthur nodded.
“Still, never mind. It’s all water under the bridge. Your nose is bleeding again, I don’t have anything to wipe up the mess so you’ll have to put up with it until I finish. Is that okay, Arthur?”
The part of the parasite that had invaded his brain through his nostrils was dying. Its delicate body was left weakened by the onslaught it went through to get to the brain unlike the section that had taken control of Arthur’s nervous system, whichwas getting stronger.
“It invaded my dreams, asking questions and demanding answers, it was driving me insane. It wanted more blood, my blood to be precise. It threatened to grow and consume everything in its path. Now back then, I hated Holburn and everyone in it, yet after the pictures it showed me, I was filled with a sense of horror and revulsion - so I made it a deal.”
He licked his lips. Arthur mental lethargy was beginning to lift, the scruffy man in front of him didn’t seem to notice.
“It promised to go back to sleep if I gave it just one more feast. I thought of you and Dave first but then dismissed the idea as I knew that there was no way that I’d be able to get you both back to the hole. I sacrificed my mother instead.” Tears were rolling down his cheeks.
“I went back and climbed down and removed the accumulated pile of leaves and lured my mother to the hole, I had covered it with a layer of thin twigs and leaves. I had hidden behind a tree and covered my ears and shut my eyes and waited for the inevitable but she didn’t fall in so in the end I had to charge out and push her. Her screaming as she plummeted down will haunt me forever.”
So this is why he had been rescued and kept alive - so the tramp could confess his sins to him. Arthur didn’t think his day could get any stranger.
“I can see the hatred in your eyes, but don’t judge me; I saved your life and I also saved this shit-eating town.”
Arthur surprised himself and the tramp when he uttered the words: “Didn’t work.”
“I didn’t cause this!” He shouted.
“I didn’t expect anyone else to find the room did I?”
Ernest raised his arm and found himself standing up. The tramp walked over to the door and he was compelled to follow like he was attached to an invisible length of rope. Arthur didn’t care about keeping his mind shielded anymore and let lost a cascade of abusive and venomous imagery.
“I saved your life, Arthur! I can’t believe you’d think such bad things about me. When this is over, you’ll understand and see that I’m right.” The tramp opened the door, the screen of vines shrank back showing Arthur that the oppressive jungle was still there, if anything, it had become denser. The tramp glanced back.
“I thought the tw
o boys would have been enough to satisfy its hunger when they had awoken it.”
An orange worm poked its head out of a burrow just by the tramp’s foot, it tried to disappear back down but it wasn’t fast enough to avoid Ernest’s lightening fast swipe. He pulled it out of its hole and held it out in front of him by the neck. Tiny tentacles shot out from the underside of it and attempted to wrap around his bony wrist but those tentacles that came into contact with his skin turned black and shrivelled up. The tramp then placed his fingers in his mouth and tapped the things head with his saliva soaked fingers.
The worm swelled up then burst like a popped balloon filled with red paint, leaving the tramp holding a pigeon slick with blood and black slime. The bird was still alive. He placed it on the threshold of the door and it wandered inside.
“The effect is still contained inside Holburn’s boundaries but that won’t last long.” Ernest stamped his foot on the ground, “This thing is growing, spreading out under the ground. By this time tomorrow, the next few towns will be infected. It needs to be stopped, Arthur. Only you can do that.”
The tramp looked inside the shop, “There is one boy left; when he dies, all this will end. Find and kill Alan Tyler.”
The door closed, leaving the pigeon alone. It hopped across the dark blue carpet then spotted some plastic redcurrants on an ornamental display and raced over.
Chapter Eighteen
The first fingers of dawn’s first light spread across the alien tree canopy, Damien tilted his head back, closed his eyes and sighed as the sun’s warm rays bathed his face.
