by Ian Woodhead
“Oi! Fuckwit.”
It spun around, its astonished expression swiftly changing to one of murderous hate. It roared then charged.
Pete swung the axe but it glanced harmlessly off the armoured breast plate. He didn’t let this deter him; he was too consumed with rage.
“Terrorised by my dad!”
The next blow hit the creature’s arm with no visible effect.
“Bullied at School!”
He swung again. The Andy-demon moved back missing the blow.
“Bullied at work!”
The axe head cracked the carapace covering the creature’s stomach. It howled in agony and staggered back, through the shop doorway.
Pete howled back, then used the axe as a pole and pushed the creature into the waiting trees. The vines slid down and slivered over the struggling Andy-demon, it took mere seconds for them to sense that their food was already wounded. Three thin vines broke through the cracked armour and slid into the soft flesh beneath.
Pete looked at wonder and in disgust at the medallion in his hands then flung it into the trees. He squeezed through the distracted vines without giving the dying Andy-demon a passing glace.
The building he was supposed to explore was a discount Pound shop, which used to be the town’s only butcher’s shop. The building was in a marginally worse state than the pet shop. Only the shell of the shop remained, its walls carpeted by the ever-present growth of plants.
Pete stood by the open doorway, this time his torch was in his hand. He wasn’t going to be caught short this time. He entered the building and played the beam of light across the walls. Something caught the light; he swung the beam back and it landed upon the face of an old man, who was holding a cut-throat razor against his cheek.
“Jesus, man!” shouted Pete. “Don’t do it!”
He rushed into the interior towards the man but was too late to stop him from drawing the blade across his cheek, the razor cutting deeply. He even heard the metal scraping against the bone.
Arthur didn’t seem to be in any discomfort. He placed the razor gently on the floor and Pete kicked the vicious looking thing across the floor and kneeled beside him.
“God man! What the fuck are you doing?”
“Watch!” whispered Arthur.
“Why are you trying to kill yourself? After all we’ve been through?”
“Hush boy.” Arthur held up a piece of broken mirror to his face. Pete gazed at the flap of flesh hanging down to his chin. Green fibrous tendrils whipped out from both edges of the wound and closed it up, knitting together and leaving a faint green scar.
“I’m sorry, boy…”
Pete jumped back, “What the fuck are you?”
Arthur held out both arms, criss-crossed with dozens of green scars.
“We’ve been running around the town like frightened rabbits, thinking that we are survivors in some great disaster.” He pulled up some yellow vine coming up through the crumbling floor tiles. “But we’re no different from this.”
He threw the stuff away and looked at Pete while grinning.
“I see mockery in your eyes son, coupled with a healthy dose of confusion. Will you not sit down? I won’t bite.”
Pete remained standing. The old man or whatever it now was had clearly lost his mind. Why was Alan so determined to get Pete to bring him back? He must have known what condition he was in.
“I came here to die, Pete.” He rubbed his thumb over the scar ridges on his arm. “But he won’t let me.”
He leaned over.
“He’s inside me head even now, seeing you through my eyes and screaming at me to kill you and feed you to the trees outside.”
Pete had heard enough. There was no way he was taking him anywhere. Arthur shot up and grabbed Pete’s arms.
“I thought I‘d given the fucker the slip. How wrong I was. The only way I’ll escape him is to die. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To kill me.” The man licked his lips. There was hope in his voice.
Pete shook his head. He wanted to get out of here.
“Please,” Arthur begged. “I can’t do it myself!”
“You might not be human anymore, mate, but what you are asking me to do is still wrong.”
Arthur barked out a laugh. “No wonder I saw mockery in your eyes! You haven’t worked it out yet, have you?”
“What are you talking about?”
Arthur let go of his arm and passed him the piece of broken mirror. Pete looked at him puzzled.
“Look at your neck.”
Pete held it up. There were four deep, dark green grooves down the side of his neck where the Andy-demon had tried to choke him. They looked like fingers squashed into wet clay. Pete dropped the mirror.
“You’re no more human than I am, Pete. Don’t you see? Nobody in Holburn is human now. We are all servants, willing or unwilling to those two who have set themselves up as Gods. The only question is - whose side are you on?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
This must be it, the original chamber that the little boy had fallen into all those years ago. Damien skirted past the dried-up body, peered into the alcove and looked up the shaft. What little light that was able to filter through the vine-choked passageway was tainted with an unnatural sick green. Tiny purple mushrooms grew from where the vines had left gaps.
If Alan was right and there were countless miles of tunnels under Holburn then they could have taken Jen anywhere. But he felt deep in his bones that this was the place where they would end up.
Damien rested his hands against the walls. The vibrations were getting stronger, and then the whole chamber shook, throwing him to the floor.
“What the fuck was that?”
A voice in the shadows answered him. “Did your lying brother not tell you what was about to happen?”
Damien moved away from the alcove, trying to work out the direction of that voice.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s almost time, Damien.” An old man stepped out into the light on the opposite end of the chamber. Jesus! Damien had walked right past him.
“You haven’t figured it out yet have you, Damien?” Ernest said.
Jennifer was pushed forward, a large demon’s paw wrapped around her throat. Damien wasted no time, he rushed the monster. Ernest raised his arm and Damien flew backwards and slammed into a wall. He slid down to the floor, feeling like a pile of boneless rags.
“You are the last one, my friend…”
Damien tried not to throw up. Despite the agony he was in, his back was soaking wet and he knew that it wasn’t sweat. He managed to get back on his feet. He wanted to know where his brother was, he was going to have to play for time. If they wanted him dead, they would have done it by now.
The demon kept squeezing Jennifer’s neck. She was doing her best not to cry out. Damien so wanted to kill that son of a bitch and he knew he could. His torch was still in his pocket and it would slice through the dirty thing like a hot knife through butter. It was the scruffy bastard he had to watch out for, he was the power. Damien forced his hatred back down.
The tramp smiled at him. “Waiting for your brother to rescue you are you? Isn’t that sweet. Your brother is already here.”
Damien couldn’t believe his eyes when two more demons stepped forward, holding Alan securely between them.
“I guess you should feel proud that you are the only human left in Holburn.” The tramp stepped up to Damien and lifted the torch out of his pocket.
“Arrogant child. Do you think you can hide your intentions from me?”
He threw the torch against the wall.
“You are my blood sacrifice Damien. You should be honoured.”
Tears were pouring down Alan’s face. The tramp saw Damien’s face soften and he stormed over to Alan.
“Don’t you dare feel sorry for your brother! He’s the biggest betrayer of them all!”
He ordered the demons to spin him around. Once his back was facing Damien, the tramp ripp
ed Alan’s shirt, revealing a long knife taped to his back with silver gaffer tape. He ripped the knife away and threw it towards Damien.
“He thought he could get you to push that into your heart for love!” he spat.
“Well I have a better proposal. Kill yourself and I’ll let the girl go. I’ll even let your brother go, even though he has betrayed you.”
Damien bent down and picked the knife off the stone floor.
“Don’t do it Damien. He’s lying!”
Ernest slapped Alan’s face. Damien ran at the tramp, ready to push the knife into his face but before he even got close, Damien found himself thrown back to the ground, his blood soaked shirt sticking to the floor. The tramp held one hand out and flicked his finger upwards, and like an unwilling puppet, Damien stood up facing the tramp, the knife hand inching closer to his heart. Damien couldn’t move anything; the tramp had taken complete control of his body.
“Now, I could just get you to slowly push the blade in myself and it would hurt - a lot - but it just isn’t the same. Now, give yourself to me, boy.”
Damien couldn’t believe that it had come to this. It was so fucking unfair.
“Do it now, boy, and I promise you that she’ll go free. The flame eyed devil wants her, you know. Do I allow it to violate her whilst you watch?”
Tears were pouring down Alan’s face. “Sorry little brother. I love you.”
“I love you too,” replied Damien.
The pressure holding his body disappeared. He found he could move his upper body. The first thing he did was drop the knife.
“Look behind you!” cried Alan.
The floor was wet with his blood, soaking into the stone.
Patterns were forming, patterns that looked like swarming black ants. The tramp screamed and hit Alan again. The pattern moved onward and expanded, and within seconds it reached Alan.
Damien’s brother sighed and the demon behind him flew backwards like a bullet and shattered against the wall.
“Kill her!” shouted Ernest, “Fucking kill the bitch!”
It raised its talons to obey but before the talons came down, the chain around its neck was pulled off from behind.
Arthur pushed Jen out of the way and embraced the demon in a bear hug. At the same time, Alan grabbed the tramp by the hair and threw him to the floor before running over to help Arthur. But he was too late to stop the demon biting into Arthur’s head.
“No!” screamed Pete.
Ernest snatched the chain off the demon that held Alan and ran to the shaft with Damien in pursuit, but Damien caught his brother’s arm and pointed behind him. The two demons had Pete cornered against the wall and were advancing. Ernest grabbed the ladder and disappeared up the shaft.
Alan snatched up the knife. “Hold out your arms.”
Damien shook his head.
“Damien, I can fix it all, but I need your blood. You’re the only one who isn’t infected.”
Damien heard Pete moaning as the demons got closer.
“Hold out your arms and close your eyes.”
Damien looked over to Jen, who nodded back. He did as he was told and felt two ice cold lines drawn down his arms.
His eyes shot open and saw all the walls in the chamber were alive with moving random patterns made of tiny black dots. They made his eyes swim. His blood was still splashing onto the floor but it wasn’t flowing out any more.
He looked into Alan’s eyes, “Is it over?”
His brother took a deep breath. “We’ve stopped the expansion but it isn’t over.” He pointed at the still forms, lying on the floor of the chamber.
Damien ran over to Jennifer and grabbed her hand. She felt like a slab of cold beef. “She’s dead, isn’t she?” He whispered.
Alan put his hands on Damien’s shoulders. “You’ll have her back soon, you just have to be a little patient. Look at the walls.”
Damien saw that they were now smooth.
“The machine stored copies of everything before the change. I’ve instructed it to restore everything.”
“I don’t get it, why isn’t it over?”
“The machine’s been activated, the signal’s been sent.”
“Oh god, you mean the builders of this ship could still exist?”
Jennifer groaned. Damien watched the others slowly start to move.
Alan nodded, “We’ll soon find out.”
The End
18th April 2010.
Revised 4th January 2012
