The Kielder Strain: A Science Fiction Horror Novel

by Rebecca Fernfield

  “Don’t take another step!” she threatens. “I’ll smash you!”

  Lois cackles and licks her lips. This one is flesh. This one is warm, dripping blood. The woman screams as footsteps thunder down the stairs. The door slams open and a boy stands in its frame, his eyes screwed with anger, his lips pulled back from his teeth. In his hands he holds a long iron rod.

  As Lois turns to the boy-nearly-man, Dog’s Arsehole screams in rage. Lois staggers forward as pain rips through her skull. She falls against Kelly-Bitch as she rips at the man. Blood smears her arm and she slips before righting herself and facing the room. Kelly-Bitch drags the man behind Lois and pulls him out into the kitchen. Dog’s Arsehole screams and launches herself at Lois. The boy springs forward.

  With a swift movement of her arm, Kelly bats the woman away and pounces to meet Boy-Nearly-Man. As she jumps, she knocks the rod away from her body and lands her weight against his chest. He topples backwards and she grips his shoulders as they fall. Before his head hits the wall, she sinks her teeth into his throat and sucks. Blood fills her mouth as they crash to the floor, entwined as lovers. The woman staggers to her feet, raises the iron rod, and arcs it down. Extracting her fangs from Boy-Nearly-Man, she jumps to her feet and with a swift twist kicks at the woman. She falls to the floor and Lois pounces, sinking her teeth into the soft pulse of her neck. The house falls silent as she crouches over the female. In her hand, the woman’s heart beats for the last time as she bites down.

  39

  The woman lies curled up beside the fireplace, the shadow of orange flames flickering on her cheeks. Max waits. His belly full, blood smears his cheeks and dries among the hairs of his chin. Another of the pack drags the body to the back door and through the forest for the Smalls to devour. The woman lies silent, her ribcage rising and falling with quick pants. She would be his. Later, among the trees, in the earth, with the soil and leaves, he would make her his. He strokes her cheek. She is beautiful. A memory pricks at him. A scene of her smiling, the bright pink of her fringe hanging above blue eyes, around them cages, inside the cages things moved, and Max is sad. The girl groans, then jerks, bucking against the wall. Her eyes spring open, the whites tracked with blood. She screams as a spasm of agony takes her. The house is empty but for She … Sally. Her name is Sally. Oh, no! Sally. He stares into her reddening eyes with sadness punching at his heart, and strokes at the blue veins threading across her pale skin.

  Laura. Laura. Laura.

  The name invades his memory, an earworm that takes him by surprise. Laura. Pain rips through his chest. Laura.

  The Sally curls into a tighter ball then rips at her t-shirt, face contorting with pain. Max will be back for the Sally, but now it was only She, only Laura, that he wants. He walks from the house to his own. Beyond the orange haze of the street light comes the desperate cries, quickly silenced, of the Screamers. Max chuckles. They think they can hide from him in their light, but there is nowhere to hide from Max.

  Two minutes later he vaults the front wall of his house and slips down the driveway to the back. The garden stretches out to the forest and solar lights swing as bright globes in the old apple tree. He crouches behind the low wall that divides the lawn from the patio and watches. Laura. The kitchen light is on and She moves there. As Laura walks up to the window, he crouches low, watching as she works at the sink.

  He waits. Listens to the tapping, running footsteps of the Others as they hunt, the quickly silenced screams, the low chuckles and snickers as they play. White breath billows in the cold air. The moon rises brightening the black sky to midnight blue. Lights disappear until finally his bedroom lamp is switched on. Max listens to the slow beat of his heart, each moment a torture of wanting. Wanting to touch her, feel her warm body close to his. Wanting to run his hands over her breasts and his fingers within her dark spaces. One more time. Just one more time. Saliva drools from his lips. He wants to lick her flesh. Smell the heat between her legs, the soft, glistening flesh, wants to lick it and – he salivates – bite it and rip it and devour her. He knocks his head on the dividing wall. No! No, Max. Love She. You love She. Yes, but to love is to devour. To lick and bite and swallow is love. Aroused at his thoughts of Laura’s body, and seared by memories of their past unions, Max is tortured by the urge to fornicate. But the urge to rip at flesh and devour it, to fill his body with hers, consumes him. She would be his forever—a part of his body forever.

  The lamplight in the bedroom disappears. Max waits. When he’s sure she will be asleep, he takes the key from its safe place – he snickers – safe for me, safe for me to … I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down. He unlocks the door and steps inside, sniffs at the familiar aromas, and takes the stairs with quiet steps two at a time. On the landing he pauses, taunting himself with the smells that catch in his nostrils, of her sweat and her sex. The door is open, the landing light on. He switches it off and steps inside the bedroom. Moonlight falls onto the duvet, her hair laid out across the pillow, her face hidden. The bedclothes rise and fall with each breath.

  The urge to jump across to the bed, pull back the duvet and sink his teeth into her throat is intense. He wants her blood to ooze over his teeth, wants to suck at her jugular and feel its metallic warmth slide over his tongue and down his throat. It would be an ecstasy.

  “Max?” the voice is soft and questioning. He takes a step back as she rolls over and her eyes lock on him. “Max?”

  Taking a step forward, moonlight falls across his shoulders illuminating his face and torso with its light.

  She remains silent, her eyes roaming over his nakedness, taking in his hardened desire, and pulls the bedcovers up to her chin. “Max.” Her voice carries a wave of sadness that settles over him. He takes a step forward.

  “It’s me.” His voice chokes, the noise that vibrates over his vocal chords, a grunt. She pulls back the duvet and sits on the edge of the bed facing him. The smell of her sweat, her breath, her dark places, is intense and he inhales it with each breath, holding it in his memory. He swallows the lump in his throat, takes a step forward and then kneels between her legs. Gripped by the urge to gnash at her throat he stiffens, pulls back. “Max,” she repeats and slides a hand across his shoulder. He flinches. She repeats his name over and over with a sad lilt and pulls him to her chest. He closes his eyes, loses himself to the warmth, and with every cell in his body bites back the urge to dig at her flesh and sink fangs into her throat. Being here was an ecstasy; being here was a torture.

  40

  Sleep was almost impossible for Freddie, but if he’s honest, he hasn’t even tried. He’d worked on his motorcycle, thankful for the integral garage, and sharpened his tools, then sat in the living room, fully dressed, freshly sharpened chisel in one hand, listening to the incessant howls. At one point, he had almost nodded off, until a howl split into his consciousness, a howl that seemed to be coming from outside the house. He’d stood with a start, moved quickly to the window, and peered through the edge of the curtain, making an effort not to move the fabric. He’d listened, heart palpitating, sure that something, not someone, was outside. He’d checked each window, moving from room to room, thankful for the double glazing he’d had installed last year, and the old, but very solid doors, he hadn’t. The kitchen and living room held the rich aroma of engine oil from the array of tools on the table, including an old motorbike chain. He’d spent much of the night working on his Kawasaki Ninja, topping up the petrol, checking the oil, making sure everything was in perfect order.

  After the news had reached him that, of the large convoy of cars filled with villagers, only a fraction had returned, Freddie had determined to make sure that the bike was in perfect working order if he needed to get away from the monsters. The bike’s speed and agility had saved him yesterday, it could do it again. The night had been full of their howls. When the howls had very first started, he could discern one ‘voice’, perhaps two at the most, but now the woods seemed to be full of them. How many of th
e creatures were out there now? He ran the number of people that had gone missing through his head, nearly forty at last count, and those were the ones he knew about. As the light of morning breaks over the village, and the howls thin to silence, he makes a decision; he and Hayley will escape on his bike.

  A pattern seemed to be establishing; attacks on the village happened at night and the howls disappeared during the day which seemed to suggest that the monsters, he balks to call them wolfmen, are nocturnal. If he can get to the barricade during daylight, he can then get through the woods on his bike to the other side. There are plenty of well-laid tracks through the woods that he can easily run the bike along.

  He makes himself a cup of tea as an alternative to the too-strong coffee drunk throughout the night, and listens. He checks his watch; six-thirty. The last howl had been nearly an hour ago. He sips his tea, takes himself upstairs and lies down fully clothed next to Hayley. Within five minutes he’s fast asleep.

  Wolfmen haunt his dreams and he wakes with a start to the sound of banging from downstairs. Swinging his feet to the floor, he knocks his knee against the bedside table, spilling the barely touched cup of tea, and leaps across the floor. What the hell was that noise?

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  Running down the stairs, he races to the living room and the source of the noise. Hayley! Dressed in jeans and t-shirt, hair pulled back in a severe ponytail, she’s holding up a large panel of chipboard, nail between her lips, hammer stuffed into her back pocket.

  “What’re you doing?” He steps forward to help with the wooden panel.

  “Boarding this place up.” Her voice is nasal.

  “Have you been crying?”

  She stops and turns to him, her eyes puffy and bloodshot.

  “What’s happened?”

  “I went round to see Tanya this morning-” A sob breaks the flow of her words.

  Dread sinks like a stone in Freddie’s belly. “Put the panel down, love. What happened?”

  “Tanya and Guy didn’t go with the convoy.”

  “I know. She decided to stay—same as us.”

  “The wolves-” She sobs again. Freddie’s scalp creeps. “Her back door was broken down … There was blood in the kitchen.”

  Freddie runs his fingers through his hair, fear rising as anger. “Don’t you ever do that again!” He grabs her shoulder, digging fingers into her muscle just a little too hard, and holds her gaze. “Don’t ever go out without me again.”

  She winces and he releases his grip. “You haven’t heard the rest.”

  “Go on.”

  “I searched through the house. She wasn’t there. Neither of them were.”

  “You could have been killed. What if those monsters were still in the house?”

  “I wasn’t, was I,” she bites. “I came straight back here. We’ve got to protect ourselves, Freddie. Something broke into their house and now they’ve gone.”

  “Even the kids?”

  “I didn’t dare go upstairs. I called for them, but there was no answer. I was too scared.”

  Freddie releases her shoulder.

  “Should we tell the Police?”

  What Police? “I want to see it for myself first.”

  “I’m not lying, Freddie.”

  “No, of course you’re not lying, but we should check for the kids. And anyway, what Police? We’ve only got PC Latimer and what use is that? We can’t leave everything up to her to sort out.”

  “No, but-”

  “The kids may be hiding somewhere, terrified. We’ll go in and see.”

  A fine drizzle spatters Freddie’s leathers as he walks up the driveway of his friend’s house. Guy worked on the rigs alongside Freddie, they’d been in the same year at school, and joined the firm straight after leaving. Everything looks as it should as Freddie walks up the drive, Hayley by his side.

  “It’s the back door that’s broken.”

  At the back of the house, a pushbike is leant against the wall beneath the kitchen window and a small kennel sits pushed up against the fence. Freddie remembers Guy’s dog, Eric, a snappy little Jack Russel Shiatzu cross with a penchant for ripping up trouser legs. ‘He’s just playing,’ Guy would say as the dog snarled and anchored itself to Freddie’s jeans. It was guaranteed that Freddie couldn’t get through the door without the wretched dog snapping at him. This morning there is no snapping of tiny jaws; the house sits in silence.

  Freddie looks about for the miniature menace. “Where’s Eric?”

  “Maybe he’s run off?”

  Stepping through the kitchen doorway, Freddie scans the room. Tanya was fastidious about keeping the kitchen tidy and, despite two teenage children, the aluminium sink gleamed and the black mock-granite worktops shone. The kitchen is immaculate bar the spatter of drying blood across the white floor tiles near the door to the living rom.

  “See!” Hayley prods Freddie’s shoulder. He grunts in return, checking around the room. Other than the splash of blood and splintered wood of the outer doorframe, nothing seems amiss, but stepping through to the living room, Freddie is met by a scene of chaos. The flat-screen television lies in the middle of the floor, knocked from its stand. A large armchair is tipped and angular, its legs stabbing to the window. Long scratches have ripped through wallpaper to the plaster below. An empty glass lies on the carpet, a red stain blossoming from beneath its curves across the cream carpet. The remains of another glass lie broken next to the hearth, its bowl crushed, its stem snapped. An arc of blood patterns the drawn curtains.

  “Whoever broke in caught them unawares.”

  “What the hell were they doing drinking wine?” That Guy and Louise were sitting drinking wine as though nothing was wrong angers Freddie. He’d warned Guy to make sure his house was secure—to lock the doors and windows. Freddie had kept a patrol throughout the night, making sure he had weapons at hand, that he was alert for any attacks, whilst Guy and Tanya had sat back drinking wine.

  “Relaxing, I guess.”

  “Relaxing! How the very hell could they ‘relax’ when those monsters were out there?”

  “Maybe drinking was the only way they could stay calm? Maybe it helped make it all easier to cope with?”

  “Idiots!”

  “Freddie! It’s not their fault.”

  He slams a hand against the wall, his skin crawling at the scene, his belly clenching, the urge to run from the house swirling with the rage growing inside. If only Guy had listened to him, he would still be alive.

  “Whatever came in here, they didn’t stand a chance. They’re picking us off, Freddie.” Her voice quivers. “This could have been us!”

  He knows she’s right. “I stayed up. I watched.”

  “They’re not here, Freddie. Let’s go.” She tugs at his sleeve. “We need to make sure our house is secure.”

  “We’re leaving the village, Hayley.”

  “But, how? The roads are blocked. You heard what Javeen …” Her voice dies out as a noise from upstairs catches their attention.

  Hayley breaks the silence with a whisper. “Do you think someone’s up there?”

  The low thud repeats.

  “Could be one of the kids?”

  Freddie swallows and nods and takes a tentative step towards the stairs. Hayley grabs his sleeve.

  “Stay here. I’ll check.”

  He takes the first riser, his light step silent against the carpet, and moves slowly up to the landing. Leading from the platform are three doors. The first is open and leads to the bathroom. A quick glance confirms that it is empty. Of the other two, one is ajar and the other closed. Freddie’s heart trips. Scuffling, and the sound of something moving, had come from behind the partly open door. Hayley’s quick grip on his arm confirms that she’s heard it too. He holds a finger to his lips and takes a quiet step towards the open door.

  Inside, the room is dingy with only a narrow band of light showing through the gap in the unopened curtains. Two beds, both unmade, sit side-by-side. Movemen
t on the bed furthest from the window catches Freddie’s eyes. A small, curled mound of tan and white fur. Eric! The dog looks up, stares at Freddie with blood-red eyes and snarls. Freddie quickly shuts the door as the dog bounds from the bed with snapping jaws.

  “Jesus! The dog’s infected.”

  The dog’s body thudding against the door is followed by scuffling and a snort from the next room. Eric’s frenzied scratching makes the door rattle.

  “A fucking weredog! You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  The deep snore breaks through the dog’s snarling.

  “That’s got to be Guy. He snores like a drain. Do you remember when we all went camping-”

  Freddie holds a finger to his lips. Hayley stops talking and they both listen to the snorts coming from behind the closed door. Freddie grasps the handle, gives the door a polite, but barely audible tap, and opens it without waiting for a response. The view into the bedroom slowly widens. Hayley pushes up against Freddie to get a clear view, and gasps. Freddie’s hands tremble.

  The bedroom is darker than the previous one, being unlit by the morning sun, and the stench of human sweat and breath is muggy in its warmth. The bed is empty, but on the floor, curled in a tangle of legs and arms are four bodies. Freddie watches in deathly stillness as he takes in the scene. All are fully clothed, the twin boys in their nightwear, Guy and Tanya still dressed in their usual jeans and tops. Though Guy is curled up next to his wife, what look like bitemarks are visible on his shoulder through his torn shirt. Huge rents have been torn in Tanya’s top and there are bite marks on her neck. He’s unable to see any damage to the boys curled close to their parents. The scene is bizarre and reminds him of the packs of wolves he’d seen down at Beenham when a camera had been set up in the wolves’ den and the animals would enter then curl together to sleep. The smell in the room clings to his nostrils.

  “They’re sleeping.”

  Unable to take his eyes off the sleeping forms, he checks each one in turn, watching the rise and fall of their ribcage as they inhale, exhale. One of the boys shifts. Hayley tugs at his arm. “Come on, before they wake up.”