Our bedroom door was closed. I opened it as carefully as I could but it made several small creaks and snaps – something wrong with the hinge, I supposed. I’d never noticed them before, but then I’d never tried to sneak around Compton House in the middle of the night. I flinched at each little noise and eventually got the door open far enough to slip through. The curtains were still open. The bed was untouched, the duvet pulled over the pillows, decorative cushions arranged neatly on top.
I must have stood there for several minutes trying to work out what it meant. I suppose I looked really stupid – Mr Clever-Clogs, armed with his seamless untruths, discovering he hadn’t covered all the angles. I think I sagged a bit. I remember pulling myself up straight again after the realities had begun to sink in. Tara hadn’t wasted any time. I knew if I checked around the house, I would find their packs gone along with enough supplies to get them safely away. She’d probably been planning it for days – maybe since the very moment we’d met the survivalist on the road from Norton, when he’d planted his mad seed in her mind. I wondered if Jake was in on it before she took him away and decided he probably was. She’d have explained it very carefully: how Dad had made a bad decision to bring them up here; how he loved them but wasn’t able to protect them; and how, as soon as he knew they’d gone, he’d follow them to the airfield and the family would be together again. Jake would have gone quite willingly. He was guileless and Tara was persuasive. And she was his mum; of course he’d go with her.
Holding myself upright was tough after it all sank in. The battle-weary soldier had been defeated. What remained? Nothing. And Tara was right, Daddy would follow them to the airfield because as shit as their life together was, it was all he had left.
I checked the other upstairs rooms without hope. I barely tried to be quiet but I had to be sure. All the rooms were empty. As I approached the last door, I realised I wouldn’t be able to open it. Tara had the key. I tried the handle anyway and found the door unlocked. Looking more closely, I saw the key was still in the lock. Maybe she’d left it as a message to me: here’s the mess, here’s the filth you led us to, you clean it up.
That was just like her.
I pushed the door wider.
I recognised the movement immediately.
Something neither human nor animal nor plant. It rustled over the walls, twining with itself, touching itself and shivering with excitement, much as the farmer’s wife had fingered her own flesh. Sensing my presence, the infestation drew back from the wall and ceiling around the door, but there was nowhere for it to go – the entire room was alive with seething, self-weaving life. And though it retreated from my presence, I could sense for the first time its agitated hatred and its boundless hunger.
Perhaps only a quarter open, the door became stuck against whatever was on the floor beyond it. My own anger rose. I’d been duped, hadn’t I? Seduced by the woman at the farm, held captive by the growth she’d become part of and betrayed by my wife. All that was left was this room full of aberrant life. It was terrified of me and not strong enough to defend itself. If I did nothing else in this Hush, I would destroy the thing that had invaded our sanctuary. I would cleanse this house.
I ran to the downstairs pantry and collected a five litre can of diesel – one of the many I’d siphoned from the abandoned farm vehicles that dotted the countryside around Compton Hill. I grabbed a lighter from the kitchen. I pulled a carving knife from a drawer, pushed it through my belt and hurried back upstairs. I didn’t want the growth to— I wasn’t sure what it might do but I was certain I needed to be swift. Diesel needed a wick to burn properly. I had the very thing; I ripped the duvet from our bed and dragged it along to the end of the hall.
Panting a little, my body once more charged with adrenaline, I stood in front of the door. The infestation had pushed it closed again and I knew then that this might not be as easy as I’d imagined. This stuff; it wasn’t… stupid. Fingers trembling, I unscrewed the diesel can and soaked the duvet with its heady contents. The fumes made me choke. I threw the empty can away down the hall, sparked the lighter and kicked open the door.
Inside, things ripped as the door scraped over them, shredding pieces of creeper and causing a massive contraction through the entire micro-ecology that now occupied the room we’d been so careful to keep locked. I heard the thump and crack of bricks being pulled from their mortar behind the plaster, and dust billowed out from the spaces in the living mesh. I picked up the duvet, now heavy and greasy with diesel, and threw it in, keeping hold of one corner. More through luck than skill, the duvet spread like a fisherman’s net and landed almost completely unfurled to cover much of the seething floor space. I held the lighter to its corner and the flames crept forth into the room.
I saw clearly for the first time how this new life looked. Its tendrils were pale and ruffled. They glistened with some sort of secretion. The furling of their edges reminded me of the tentacles of jellyfish, only these appendages were far more agile and animated. Especially now they were touched by fire. The entire room rippled and pulsed with contractions but there was nowhere for the infestation to go. It writhed against itself, twisted and flailed as the heat gathered in its midst.
I followed the rising thick black smoke with my eyes. By the light from the burgeoning flames I saw my wife and son woven among the tendrils on the ceiling. I thought they were dead for a moment but, of course, how could they be? Nothing died now, did it? It merely took on new life. They were frozen among the tendrils, their naked skin having taken on the pallor of the bonds that held them. Their own bodies had sprouted new growth, too; filamentary extensions of their skin that waved in the air like the feathered fronds that dart in and out of coral. When the smoke touched these, they rippled and stiffened before beating and drumming at the air.
Mother and child hung locked in an embrace so tight it was difficult to define where one ended and the other began. Jake’s mouth had found Tara’s breast and partially engulfed it. It reminded me of those few days after his birth when Tara had attempted to breastfeed him. He’d been eager enough even then but she’d insisted she didn’t have enough milk for him and he was soon drinking powdered formula from a bottle. Now the union was different. Perhaps Jake was feeding on her but not in the same way. They were not dead at all. They were rapt with concentration. Their bodies worked each other: some inhuman pumping action which took place beneath the skin, some grotesque exchange of fluid.
The heat from the fire built quickly and I sensed screaming in the hiss of the infestation as it curled and blackened in the flames; a whispered, sentient shriek. Finally, Jake and Tara became aware of their surroundings. Their eyes took in the situation and fixed upon me. I could no longer see the souls of my wife and son behind those eyes. Whatever problems we’d faced as a family before the Hush began, this was trouble of another order. Something lived within them, using them for its own growth and propagation. Whatever it was had driven the human parts of their minds insane. The rest of that intelligence looked out at me with cool hatred and utterly assured superiority. Even as they burned, they watched me through eyes of black glass while, far inside, Tara and Jake silently implored me to save them from the flames.
By then it was too late, even if there was a way to free them. The fire had taken hold. The door and the fitted cupboards were burning hard. The parasite-ridden bodies of my family split open in the heat and tangled loops of whitish, stinking vessels spilled forth, hanging into the flames where they spat and burst further. Not a single human organ did I recognise, only this endless pouring forth of sponge-like tubing that writhed with its own agonised life as it burned.
I backed away from the door, not quite able to stop watching my family disintegrate and drop, piece by piece, into the centre of the fire. All the while those black eyes watched me; all the while alive. Something in the room burned brighter for a moment and the flame exhaled into the hallway, scorching the hair from the backs of my hands. I staggered away, pushed by the rush of hot dry air. Flaming pieces o
f debris landed on the wool carpet. It burned fast, adding to the smoke and the already strong smell of incinerated hair. Melted pieces of tissue blew out of the room next, adhering to the opposite wall and continuing to burn. The exhaustion and smoke were taking their toll. I needed to lie down somewhere and sleep but I knew the fire was going to spread and the whole house would burn. I had to leave.
Using the torch from our bedroom, I went through everything we had, trying to decide what I would need and how much I could reasonably carry.
I left the house with a badly packed rucksack on my shoulders and a knife gripped in my right hand. Looking back, I saw the fire had spread up through the ceiling and into the attic, its timbers catching alight. Flames burst through the roof and sparks and ash fell all around me.
Catatonic, I stood and watched the fire claim more and more of Compton House. At some moment I must have remembered the gas tanks and all the fuel we had stored. That was what turned me around and sent me out through the gate at a stumbling run.
I wasn’t going back into the fields. That left me the farm track down into the valley, back to the road that had brought us here. I just needed a place to hide until morning. There was only one place left to go.
***
I don’t think the end can be far away.
The cavern blazes with unnatural incandescence, gemstone flashes and firebolts. There’s an alien rhythm to their mute detonations. Despite everything I’ve recalled, I’ve managed to find a way to stay calm and unexcitable. Nonetheless, the tendrils are alive with tension and agitation. By the orchestral illuminations, I glimpse the rising all around me. People ascend; some clothed, others naked and bleeding; some unconscious, others screaming for release. Puppets gathered. Fruit reclaimed. Prey drawn close and intimate for the reckoning; life for life. Those still alive are close to insanity as they try to make sense of what they know to be their final moments. Some have passed that barrier into a kind of quiescent trance.
Perhaps they’ve found God.
I can’t help but snigger and it draws a stare from a man being hauled upwards a few feet from me. He looks at me the way I’m looking at everyone else – as though I’m crazy. Maybe I am. Maybe we all are.
Is that what this is about?
Is that how they won? By driving us to madness with our deepest, most secret cravings? The Stricken – that was how they’d acted. Desperate, hungry, with no hope of satiety until the end of time itself. And that want, that existential emptiness, it was like an engine driving them the moment the sun went down. If that was true, then what about me? Why did I fight the Stricken? Why have I not been turned? Of course, I’ve experienced my share of lunacy and even acted it out, but hanging here a few feet below the reeking fungal stoma, I know I’m not Stricken. Even though I’ve destroyed my own family with neglect and fire. But why? How have I avoided it – even after being in such close contact with them at the farm? And these people in the cavern with me – thousands of them – they’re not Stricken either; they’re meat, hanging in a cooler.
I wish I had more time to work it out. All I know is that there’s some kind of logic to it, a kind of nature, even if it is far from anything we consider natural.
I’ve got minutes left before I make my final ascent. Possibly seconds.
Not only will I be food for some greater, more successful life form, I will die in ignorance.
It’s the not knowing that troubles me the most. That and the knowledge that there will be no more pizza. Not for me.
Not for anyone.
***
The farm track was quiet. Nothing moved on either side. The glow of the new night was as strong as ever and yet without a recognisable origin. The light moved as though coming from many directions and sources. It cast sudden shadows – those of my own body, the trees and the farm outbuildings – and though I was alone and nothing stirred nearby, I started often and my skin tightened and prickled with dread.
I passed between the old structures of the abandoned farms and dwellings without incident. Near the bottom of the track the trees loomed close on either side and I found myself looking upwards in anticipation of attack. Nothing jumped me but the grasping shadows of the trees. When my boots struck the tarmac of the country road, I was triumphant. The route was wide and clear but for the occasional car. I could see farther in every direction and nothing reached out towards me from the low, neat hedges on either side. There was no sign of the cancerous shapes I’d seen in the next valley. I picked up the pace. Perhaps the best place to shelter would be one of the abandoned cars; something sturdy.
I found a Freelander around the next bend. The perfect thing. I tried the door and found it locked. Unbelievable! The car had stopped working, along with every other car in the country, but the owner had still locked it – they’d had to have used the ignition key and done it manually, too. Shaking my head, I walked on. About a hundred yards farther along the road, I came across a Massey Ferguson tractor; a beast of a machine. The door was hanging open like an invitation and I climbed up. The cab smelled of diesel, cigarette smoke, dung, and sweat. It was the most comforting aroma I could remember. Something from before the Hush, something real I could connect to. Even though the cab was glass, I liked the height it gave me. I unstrapped my pack and tossed it in. This would be my bedroom and my fortress until morning. I locked the door behind me.
I settled into the driver’s seat, adjusted it into a half recline and, after several minutes of scanning the fields to either side and the road in front and behind, allowed my eyes to close. The air of threat prevented me from sleeping for more than a few minutes at a time, but I knew I could make it through the night. By the safety of daylight, I could make my way to the airfield.
I woke many times and on every occasion my eyes opened to see my hand held out in front of me, the knife pointed towards the door of the cab. Heart hammering, I would look around and then settle back into the seat again, trying to calm my breathing. It was exhausting.
There was a rumbling at some point. I felt it in the bones of my head and deep in my sinuses. The vibrations soothed me and, for the first time that night, I slipped deeper into sleep, the tension releasing from every muscle and from my vice-tight jaw. I forget what happened then and I have no idea how long I was truly asleep. At some point, the rumbling deepened and increased from a sensation to a sound.
I opened my eyes, relaxed and rested, and looked ahead without flailing in self-defence. Quite to the contrary – my hands were folded in my lap and my knife lay beside the driver’s seat. The tractor appeared to be afloat. My sleepy eyes tried to make sense of this for a long time and what began as floating soon became sinking. I started forwards in the seat.
The tractor, however many tons of it there were, was sinking through the road. So were the other cars I could see from the cab. There was light outside. Not damaged, sick light, but the light of Earth’s natural dawn – perhaps only minutes away. I’ve never wished so hard for the sun to rise. Somehow, still half-asleep, I believed that if the sun came up, it would defeat the life forms abroad in the hours of darkness and send the agents of the Hush back to wherever it was they’d come from.
My whole body buzzed. I could feel the harmonics in my bones, as though they might loosen from each other. My muscles were numbed by the vibrations, so weak I could barely hold myself upright. The road had liquefied, the tarmac molten and blurred by movement. I saw waves rippling over the once-solid surface. The waves came from the cars sinking down through the road and into the ground. Already the wheels of my tractor refuge had disappeared.
The throbbing affected my middle ear and my stomach soon after. Barely able to turn my head, I vomited a watery stew into my lap. The tractor sank fast. I had no strength left, only will. I pushed myself from the seat, puking all the while, and unlocked the cab door. I pushed it open and tried to climb out. The oscillation made every surface blur and when I touched the edges of the door to pull myself through, it felt like I was holding handfuls of fur
. The level of the road rose to reach the base of the cab as I pulled myself up onto its roof. From there, I stood up on pulsing legs and caught a glimpse of the surrounding countryside as the sun tried to break over the horizon.
The world had melted.
The once straight lines of hedges that made the hillsides into a green patchwork had slipped towards each other, creating knots and nonsense of the land. Trees had fallen and were mostly submerged. Houses had sunk to their second storeys and were disappearing further. Behind me, Compton Hill was flattening out. The sides of the road swept in towards me, the hedges already going under. In the distance, in the direction of the dairy farm, I thought I saw pale shapes rising up from the cascading torrent of the earth’s surface.
I looked down to find my feet had been overrun by liquid tarmac. The roof of the tractor had already submerged. There was no heat, only that nauseating buzz and a sense of being drawn downwards, of being sucked in. I knew there was no point in trying to swim – the throb was so powerful now I was almost paralysed anyway. I sank to my waist and then to my armpits. As the slurried land reached my neck, I felt something coil tightly around my lower legs.
I didn’t finish filling my lungs. Whatever had hold of my ankles yanked me down so hard it sent all the breath from me.
I descended at great speed through the quagmire of what ought to have been solid earth.
Straight down into darkness, my arms and hands trailing above me. Fluid soil and rock flew upwards on every side. It felt like falling. The buzzing intensified – I couldn’t work out if its origin was my oxygen-starved brain or the sonics that had turned the land to pulp. I couldn’t control my lungs any longer; I had to breathe in, though a lungful of liquid stone would finish me.
As I began to draw breath there was a pop below me, as though my feet had pierced a taut membrane. I passed through what I can only describe as a sphincter. It closed over my head and I found myself moving horizontally. Whatever had pulled me into these depths had let go. I breathed in, not the fluid earth, not even dank air, but the cleanest, most oxygen-rich air I’d ever breathed. My head cleared instantly and the buzzing now sounded – and felt – distant. It was from beyond a thick, flexible wall. I was insulated within some kind of living duct. I knew it was alive because I now moved feet first along it, driven ever onwards by rhythmic muscular contractions. Unable to bring my outstretched arms back down by my sides, I tried to use my feet to stop myself. The duct merely changed its shape to prevent me becoming stuck. I wished for my knife in that moment, though I doubted it would be any use against the conduit’s tough, uterine surface.
The Veil (Testaments I and II) Page 13
