by Alan Kelly
‘I was at the scarecrow festival Jessica. I saw what happened. Remember?’ Bunny was impressed; he said this without taking his eyes off Alice for a second.
‘That was someone else, not me,’ Alice replied, her voice full of ice and despair.
This unnerved Bunny more than the boy holding the big gun.
‘I know about the Substrate and what it is going to do.’
Steve took a few steps forward. Alice didn’t even flinch. The sky was now the colour of wet cement, with sluggish trails of dirty black clouds.
‘What exactly is the Substrate?’ asked Bunny and they both looked at her.
‘The Substrate is just a word Jessica picked out of a dictionary Mister,’ said Steve.
‘It’s Ms actually,’ replied Alice, breezily.
‘Shut the fuck up you alien whore!’ he shouted, gun aimed between Alice’s eyes.
‘Sorry,’ he said, looking at Bunny and meaning it.
Bunny suddenly felt even worse; covered in shit and blood with her cock in her hands.
Steve held the gun up to emphasise he meant business and started, ‘All I know is that the Substrate is something living but dormant.’ He lowered the shotgun and wiped the sweat from his forehead, which gave Alice all the time she needed. She quickly grabbed the transmitter and the Unicorn and escaped into the depth of the woods.
Steve fired some shots after her but only managed to hit a few trees.
‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’ he screamed, close to tears.
Bunny wondered what he meant by living but dormant so asked.
‘The Substrate is only a word she’s used up till now. That device and transmitter will open a port’ Sunglasses explained.
Bunny was having difficulty keeping up with him. He walked as he spoke.
‘And what happens… Sorry what’s your name by the way?’ asked Bunny.
‘Steve. You?’ he smiled.
He had one of those faces which, at first, was nothing to sing home about but the more you looked at it the more beguiling it became.
‘Bunny Flask,’ she replied, holding out her hand.
Steve gripped her small hand in both of his and, if it hadn’t been for the oestrogen, the grip of those large agricultural hands would have given her a semi.
‘The Substrate is the machinery that underlies the mind, but the mind isn’t confined within the head or the body,’ he said, while staring into middle-distance.
Puzzled Bunny walked alongside him for a while trying to swallow what he was attempting to explain to her. She grabbed his arm and stopped him.
‘Look, none of this makes any sense,’ she felt her voice going up an octave.
‘Basically four ports will open, The Sisters will be unleashed and they will be followed by something called Psyche. Psyche is a malevolent entity which will consume, control and eventually destroy anything and everything with a consciousness on Earth’ he almost barked.
‘But how is that connected to the Substrate?’ Bunny asked sheepishly.
‘Because Bunny,’ he began, and took hold of her shoulders ‘it will wake up something in us. Our minds will no longer be our own. It won’t just wake the Substrate it’ll infect it too.’
Bunny thought about pointing out that our minds aren’t really our own anyway but then thought better of it. She felt like Clive Barker’s heroine from The Great and Secret Show Tesla Bombeck only, ironically, Tesla had bigger balls than Bunny.
‘So we stop that happening?’ she asked a question that went unanswered.
On both sides of her she could hear the wind bite and whistle through the woods. It was almost dawn now, she noticed.
‘How do I know you can be trusted?’ she asked, glancing at him, trying to figure out the colour of his eyes behind those ridiculous glasses.
‘You can’t, but lets just say its better that I’m on your side for the time being at least,’ he replied and they walked on silently, making their way to the house at the bottom of Mount Kippure.
32
Slaughter! Slaughter!
Kiffany couldn’t get much sense from Jones. He sat sobbing with the ball of his fist pushed into his mouth, sprawled across his couch stinking of alcohol. Whenever in doubt Kiffany decided the only solution to problem solving was a swift drink. She poured herself a large measure of rum and knocked it back while pouring another. She sat back down beside him.
His face was so distorted by misery that she thought he looked like a back-street abortion. She left him bawling for a few more minutes while she quietly sipped her drink. She looked across the room at an artist’s rendition of herself, which was still hung over the fireplace. She liked the picture. It made her look like an insouciant French slut. She turned her attentions back to the heaving bulk shuddering on the sofa and wondered what she ever saw in him? He was only a step up from a German Shephard.
‘What’s the matter sweet?’ she asked, laying a hand on his shoulder.
He violently pushed it away.
‘Well that’s fine, where is my money?’ she demanded, arms folded across her breasts, a technique she often used when she wanted something she couldn’t have. Kiffany was a girl who wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Jones looked at her with eyes that had about as much life as road kill. A strange smirk replaced the tears on his ugly fat face. Kiffany was beginning to get really pissed at the motherfucker. She was wondering if Bunny had woken up yet. What if she’d been seriously wounded? She’d just left her there, in a mangled wreck, on a freezing night and for what, money? She was not a superstitious woman but even she thought that was so callous an act that it was likely to come back round and bitch-slap her someday. She was fond of Bunny, when she looked at Jones she knew that he was proof that there were some people in the world who deserved to die, but Bunny Flask wasn’t one of them.
‘I will only ask one more time, where is my…’ but before she could finish the sentence she felt something sharp pinch hard between her shoulder blades and then Jones’s face was covered in blood. When she looked down, a ghastly hand was holding her still thumping heart in the palm of its hand.
‘Doom...’ was Kiffany Boston-Gifford’s final word.
Grim Myra had broken out of the Doll House. The thing stood looking down at Kiffany’s eviscerated corpse before turning its attention back to Jones. To his utter horror it recognised him and wasn’t attacking. Instead its long fingers began stroking the side of his face, the tongue like an eel licking its emaciated features lasciviously.
‘Micheal,’ it said clearly although, at first, he thought he only imagined this.
‘Myra?’ he whimpered.
‘Yes, it’s me. Why did you look for me?’ it asked, and he didn’t understand what it meant.
The stink was atrocious and the strings of skin, which hung down from it were coated in maggots. Other creatures he couldn’t identify scurried and squirmed in its eye sockets.
‘What have I done to you?’ he whispered anxiously.
‘Nothing worse than when I was breathing little brother,’ it replied. ‘Nothing bad at all.’
It stroked his face again. When it crouched down spreading its legs wide, his eyes strayed to the place between them. His mind no longer had any kind of purchase on a feasible reality. What he saw snatched the leftovers of his sanity away before Myra pushed his head between her legs.
33
The Invasion of the Dolls
The first thing Alice did once she reached Jones’s house was to bring herself down to the Doll House. She would start the Doll’s wakening earlier than expected and to hell with this planet. She’d made a grave mistake attempting to indoctrinate Bunny Flask. The girl was a gullible self-involved little prick.
When Alice came to the entrance of the Doll House she was surprised to see the door was open but, when she got closer, was shocked to see that the door had been forced open from the inside. It was dark when she entered and she slid on the floor. Had the births already begun? she wondered searching for the lig
ht. What confronted her when she switched it on enraged her.
Malformed Dolls crawled and slithered all over the floor of the sauna. Someone or something had ripped the Dolls from their cocoons and whatever was responsible had mutilated the defenceless creatures. Some had been hollowed out; lungs, intestines, hearts, bowels and wombs scattered everywhere. The ones that were still alive were failing quickly. Alice Fiend felt fear circle her spine like a serpent. The thing, and of this fact she had no doubt, that did this was a creature she had no desire to meet. Jones must be responsible. She didn’t give it anymore thought. It was time to open the port.
The Sisters would clean this mess up. She was alone, she was troubled by the thought, and she had sent the other Dolls out into the city. She closed her eyes. Dolls carried the imprint of ancestral memories buried deep in the Psyche. She reached out into the darkness of her mind and found The Sisters waiting. Comforted by this she readied herself for opening the port at the top of Mount Kippure.
34
Corpse Bitch
It was the screams of Jones that brought Bunny and Sunglasses into the dining room. Kiffany’s chainsaw was over by the fireplace. It was definitely Jones grunting but neither of them could see what was happening. A large overturned couch was obscuring the view. Tentatively Bunny walked a few steps behind Sunglasses, who held the shotgun in front of him. When they finally could see what was happening Bunny held her hand over her mouth.
Kiffany’s body lay cold and brutalised. Something long, thin and rotting was squatting over a naked Jones, who was screaming in agony because the creature had gouged his eyes out.
‘Shoot it,’ hissed Bunny quietly.
Steve didn’t answer, just stood and stared. Bunny elbowed him hard in the ribs.
‘Hey,’ he shouted, rubbing his side.
The creature heard them and got to its feet. It was even more ghastly than the thing Bunny burned at the office. It looked like The Grim Reaper from Cemetery Man. Sunglasses aimed and fired, blowing a large chunk of its ribcage away.
‘Now I must say, that wasn’t a very nice thing to do,’ the creature sighed, wagging its finger at them like a mother would a naughty child.
Sunglasses aimed the shotgun again and the creature charged. Bunny was knocked to the floor while this corpse bitch lifted Sunglasses off the ground. He still had a firm hold of the shotgun but hadn’t enough room to fire. The corpse bitch sunk her nails into Sunglasses mid-riff, with every intention of splitting him open.
Jones crawled along the floor, a not quite slaughtered pig. Sunglasses punched the corpse bitch and his fist sunk into her rotting face. It stumbled away and Bunny grabbed a candelabra. She swung and it connected with the side of the corpse bitch’s head. The creature staggered and Bunny did a one hundred and eighty degree spin, swinging it again as hard as she possibly could. This time she struck gold. The already fragile cranium caved in and the corpse bitch went down.
Sunglasses lay on the floor, a hand over his bleeding chest. The wounds weren’t deep. His Sunglasses had been knocked from his face during the fight and Bunny could see that his eyes were a hard green. In the battle she had completely forgotten about Jones, until she heard him whining. She kissed Steve and went over to the fireplace and picked up the chainsaw. Jones was on all fours and she kicked him hard in the stomach, knocking him onto his back. He let out a pitiful cry.
‘Don’t bother begging,’ said Bunny.
‘Wait, Wait,’ cried Jones, holding his hands in the air. ‘Is that you Bunny?’
‘It is,’ she replied, coldly.
‘Help me, please.’
So he did beg after all.
‘Of course,’ she said, and started the chainsaw.
Bunny had sometimes been the squeamish type but using a chainsaw on a human body was almost as easy as using a gun she imagined as she cut through pink skin, saggy muscle, putrid viscera and calcium deficient bone. Jones stayed alive a lot longer than she expected, screaming until he drowned in his own blood and vomit. Bunny relished every second of her gore opera. When she was done, she turned to Steve, who’d been sick all over the floor. She had a feeling he might be a lightweight.
‘Now…’ Bunny declared.
‘You’re ins…’ he started, but stopped himself just in time.
‘Now?’ Steve asked nervously.
Bunny raised an eyebrow. ‘Alice, you plank,’ she said, helping him up off the floor and added smiling, ‘All things are possible boy.’
35
The Sister’s Fall
Alice knew she would get there now. The end was in sight. The Sisters would arrive bringing Psyche with them. They would wake the Substrate; the mechanics beneath consciousness itself. Some would even describe the Substrate as the psychology of the universe. Psyche would possess it and this tiny world. She would pour into this universe as quickly and addictively as heroin running through a user’s veins.
Alice looked at the pale orange sun hanging over a grey sea in the distance, and then down at a highway with ordinary people driving ordinary cars to their ordinary jobs. There was a small stretch with a lavender field beside a closed down factory, a garage and a small yellow pub stood opposite it. Old meadows and miles and miles of dirty white sky; a sky that would burn hot pink when The Sisters came through the port. She placed the Unicorn key into the transmitter and activated the frequency.
When Bunny and Sunglasses came out at the back of Jones’s estate they discovered a small-log cabin with a garage beside it.
‘We have very little time. There might be a car in it,’ Bunny said, pointing at the garage.
‘Wait,’ Sunglasses Steve said, softly taking her arm.
He reached into his jacket and took out the Gemini, holding it in the air in front of her in the cold morning light. She knew by the expression on his face that he wasn’t going any further.
‘I’m not going back, even if you turn away,’ she said, jabbing a finger into his chest.
He gave her the shotgun and she slung it over her shoulder.
‘What is that anyway?’ she asked, looking at the Gemini.
‘It’s how I got the information about Jessica and her plans; about the Psyche. But it’s also a key. That other key Jessica has opens the ports right? Well this closes them…’ his voice trailed off.
Bunny beamed at him.
‘So it’s that easy, all I have to do is use that and things will be back to the same as always. Right, gimme.’
‘No, there’s a catch you see,’ he replied timidly, and she swore she could almost hear the fucking violins.
‘Which is?’ she asked, not really wanting to know the answer.
‘This isn’t just a key. It’s a weapon. The explosion caused by using the Gemini to close the ports will destroy everything within a one-mile radius,’ he said, quietly.
‘You piece of shit,’ she spat, slapping his face. ‘You knew this and were never willing to do it? So instead I’m putting my tits on the line?’
‘I just came for Jessica. I figured if I stopped her…’
‘So I’ve to burn up there instead of you?’ asked Bunny.
Steve just nodded, which made her feel even crazier. She held the gun under his chin. She never imagined her life having such a high body count.
‘On the ground,’ she ordered him.
Confusion spread across his face and his mouth hung open. She hit him with the butt of the gun, smashing his nose all over his face and knocking him down.
‘Roll over, I don’t want to look in your eyes when I do this,’ she said sincerely.
He was dazed and sleepy looking but he lay down on his stomach without protesting. With the heel of her shoe pressed against the back of his neck she pushed his face into the dirt. She might have been half animal after everything she had been through; her mother’s indifference, her father’s drunken breath on her face, Jones cruel dismissal of her, being dumped by Josh and drawn into Alice’s nefarious scheme. But she was still a woman and had some feelings left. If
she looked him directly in the eye she might change her mind and she’d all but run out of second thoughts.
‘I’d like to say I’m…’ she couldn’t finish the sentence or pull the trigger. What a fucking anti-climax, she thought. Steve carefully heaved himself off the ground. If all men were going to die anyway, maybe shooting him would spare him that suffering? She raised the gun again and his eyes widened in fear. She swung, bashing him in the side of the head. He fell to the ground unconscious.
‘I’ll just leave you to escape, if you have the strength.’
She went to the garage and tried to yank the door open. It was stuck and, even though she kicked that door like a harlot sitting on a hot-tin dildo, it wouldn’t budge. Frustrated she sighed, kicked the door once more with no luck and then something caught her eye.
There was a sign she followed that read ‘Sally’ pointing to a field on her right where a working horse was chomping down stingers.
‘Well hello there Sally,’ she squealed, delightfully firing a shell at the sky.
The horse didn’t even flinch and it took next to no time to mount that mare.
‘Come on Sally...’ she said, taking hold of its mane and kicking hard.
The horse reared up and almost knocked her off. She kicked the horse again and Sally galloped towards the hill; to the end of her world.
By now a cyclone was swirling above Mount Kippure; the highs and lows of air pressure systems being transformed into a fiery vortex which spit spider threads of venomous red and dirty orange out into the sky. It looked, thought Bunny, like the veins on a dead person’s legs. Liquid blue fire crept down from a fissure in the sky and it appeared to be constructing some sort of machinery around The Unicorn. She’d need to act fast or she wouldn’t be able to get inside.
Alice Fiend stood in the heart of the maelstrom, her head thrown back, arms stretched open wide. Bunny stalled the horse. There were only two shells left so she needed to make the shot count. She loaded, aimed and pulled the trigger. Alice’s shoulder exploded in a supernova of gore and bone fragments but it seemed that the shot barely registered with the fiend. She looked in Bunny’s direction, mild annoyance on her face. Her arm hung limp and broken at her side.
