by Jacob Rayne
Flesh Harvest II: A Feast of Flesh
By Jacob Rayne
A Rayne of Terror publication
Also available from Rayne of Terror
Becoming…
The Lazarus Contagion (Dying Breed Book 1)
Cold-Blooded Kin (Dying Breed Book 2)
Sunshine
Flesh Harvest
Walk in the Park
Digital Children
Perpetual Darkness
Season’s Bleedings
Terror Unlimited short story series
1:15
Two Stars
Third Strike
A Feast of Flesh and Flesh Harvest
Copyright © Saul Bainbridge (Writing as Jacob Rayne) 2015 and 2013 respectively
All rights reserved
Cover art created by Stephen Bryant of SRB Productions.
http://www.srbproductions.net/
A father’s love and dedication to his family is one of the key themes in this book, so I dedicate this one to Isla Boo, my cub, my cuddle-buddy, my fellow hide and seek fanatic.
Thanks for making me the proudest, luckiest dad in the whole world.
I love you, sweetie.
XXXXXX
A note from Jacob
Hi there, thanks for choosing to read A Feast of Flesh.
This story is a sequel to one of my first books, Flesh Harvest. If you haven’t read that one yet, I’d recommend you do so before starting this one.
I’ve included it in the bonus section, so check that out first.
If you’ve read the first story then you already have some idea what’s in store and I sincerely hope it lives up to the original.
Sweet screams!
A Feast of Flesh
Dwayne had got into one of the cars that had been kept at the outer edge of the farm. Over the years they had taken a lot of vehicles. They had scrapped most of them to get money for food when victims weren’t readily available. The remaining half a dozen cars were hidden in strategic locations around the farm for the specific purpose of fleeing if things went south.
He hauled the body of the policeman’s wife into the back seat, taking care to lie it on its back so as not to damage the precious life that grew in her belly. She should be considered lucky that she was dead, as those things made a hell of a mess when they chewed their way out of the womb.
The vast majority of the creatures died upon leaving the host’s body, but he had high hopes for this breeding. The stomach bulged as the creature inside moved. He hadn’t seen such strong movements before, so he was confident that this one would thrive.
A couple of miles from the farm he pulled over, hearing the wet chewing sounds that he knew heralded the arrival of the infant creatures. He turned into the back seat to see a mass of dark blood oozing out from between the legs of the corpse.
Less than a minute later, the creature’s pale head appeared. Its tiny grey tongue flicked at the congealed blood that lined the wound. It let out a mewling cry that made Dwayne smile. This one was strong. Its tiny, wing-like arms hauled it forward; a taste of the blood that coated its lips seeming to provide the strength it needed to emerge into the twilight.
Dwayne felt honoured to witness what was sure to be the first successful breeding of his master’s race in years. The puppy-sized creature was beautiful, and, with sufficient care, affection and feeding, would give him the eternal life that his dead master had promised.
While he watched the creature feasting on the meat of the dead woman’s thigh, he noticed her belly twitching. He watched in amazement as a second pale snout poked out of the ragged hole between the woman’s legs. It let out a high-pitched cry like its sibling and proceeded to yawn and sample the blood around the wound. Invigorated by the blood, it crawled out into the car.
Dwayne was amazed at the spectacle. Living twins were unheard of, as one always killed the other while they were still in the womb. He had something exceedingly special here. He watched the beautiful creatures feast for a while, then he pulled away and headed to the next town. He knew of an abandoned barn there that he could use to raise these vicious little miracles.
Part 1 – Vicious little miracles
1
Dwayne had taken good care of his young miracles.
The barn he’d found had been a great home for him and his family.
Until the locals started catching on to what was happening. The town was too close, the events too soon after the previous harvest.
People were in a state of seemingly perpetual paranoia, so it wasn’t long before they began to notice the disappearing animals and people.
But what was he to do?
He couldn’t let his young family starve. They needed to consume blood to grow into the majestic creatures he knew they should be. He’d given all he could from his own body, was growing weaker by the day as a result of desperately donating his life fluid.
One scruffy kid had been the straw that broke the camel’s back.
He’d had a feeling he shouldn’t have gone for it; it was obviously much too risky. But his mind wasn’t working properly; he was too drained from the previous night’s feeding (they seemed to take more every time he offered, neither noticing nor caring the effect it had on their father) and his young ones were crying out in agony at the devastating hunger pangs that gnawed at their bellies.
A good father provided for his young ones no matter what. The thought of them in distress physically pained him and to do less than his best for them was to do them – and himself – a grave injustice.
So he’d left them in the barn, with the sorry remains of a dead sheep for sustenance. He hoped that would be enough to satiate them while he found something more substantial.
His dirty fist had knocked through the glass in the back door and a few lights had come on in the neighbouring houses. He’d ducked into the shadows, the thought that this was going to be the time that got him caught passing through his mind more than once while he waited for the lights to extinguish.
Instead of trusting his intense feeling of foreboding, he looked around to make sure the lights had finally gone out and shoved his arm through the back door. He cursed as the glass left in the frame nicked his bicep, leaving a dark blemish of blood on the door.
The house was quiet, dark, dirty dishes casting abstract shapes on the kitchen counters. The smell of garbage and stale beer crept into his nostrils.
His eyes were used to the darkness, honed to it.
He picked out the sleeping form of the man of the house, sleeping on the settee (probably after an argument with the female, judging by the fist-shaped hole in the kitchen door and the jagged shards of plate on the living room floor).
Dwayne moved in silently and ran the sickle across his throat, catching the gushing blood in a dirty washing up bowl he’d found on the floor behind the settee.
Grinning, Dwayne dipped his finger in the warm blood and licked it. He nodded, took as much as he could stomach in one gulp and disappeared up the stairs.
Instantly, he felt life flood into his exhausted body.
He heard high-pitched music, like that of a lullaby machine.
They’ll love a kiddy, Dwayne thought with a grin. The tender flesh would be perfect to ease the agonising empty stomachs of his little darlings.
He debated taking out the mother first, but he was aware of how long he’d been in the house. So, in a decision he’d soon regret, he snuck into the kid’s room first.
His eyes widened as he saw two kids. One was a toddler, the other about six.
Jackp
ot! He thought with a grin.
His eagerness to get the fresh meat back to his beautiful monsters made him rush into the room before assessing the situation properly.
The older kid was awake, disturbed by the younger one’s music box.
And he started screaming bloody murder when he saw Dwayne in the doorway.
Dwayne grabbed the kid, clamping a dirty hand over its mewling gob, but the younger one woke too and started bawling and crying fit to raise hell.
The mother appeared, bleary-eyed and stinking of beer and garlic sauce, makeup smeared across her pig-like face.
She was about to bollock the kids until she saw Dwayne halfway out of the window, the struggling child in his arms.
She screamed and ran at him.
Dwayne fell, bouncing down the roof and landing in a heap on the floor. He was unhurt, but the kid was wailing with the volume of an air raid siren. Lights began to come on all around the street.
‘Help, he’s got Charlie,’ the woman screamed from the upstairs window.
The kid made to run, but Dwayne darted in and grabbed him. He was fucked if he was going home empty-handed after all this.
Sweating and panicked, Dwayne reached the edge of the farm. He’d run in a loop, trying to lead his pursuers off the scent.
He hadn’t seen the man who’d crept after him, his torch off, so as not to draw attention to himself.
2
Darren Banks smiled and kissed his son’s forehead. The clamminess of the pale skin still unsettled him but the doctor had reassured him – too enthusiastically for Darren’s liking – that little George was going to be fine.
The emergency ambulance callout that morning was almost lost in the mists of sleep-deprivation and the elongation of time that can only occur whilst staring at the blank walls of a hospital ward waiting to hear back on a loved one.
Terri was staying overnight with George. Darren had wanted to stay, had practically begged the nurse to let him, but they were adamant. Rules were rules.
‘We’d let you,’ one of them – a wild-looking petite blonde that he’d have pursued relentlessly in his young, free and single days – had assured him. ‘But the supervisor tonight is a real bitch.’
He’d nodded, feeling something inside him dwindle. He knew sleep would not be forthcoming.
A long uncomfortable attempt to sooth his tattered mind was on the cards, he knew that.
Lost in his thoughts, he glanced around to see that he was in an unfamiliar part of the hospital.
The cheerful voices of the nurses had long faded into the background, filling the corridors with an eerie silence.
The lights didn’t come on as he walked, leaving the corridor hidden in a twisted mass of shadows.
Welfare seats, long discarded by the hospital’s daytime visitors, sat empty, forbidding shapes in the gloom.
Disquiet crept over him as he looked around, feeling very much like the time he’d lost his parents in the supermarket as a kid. He squinted at the sign above his head.
‘Pathology,’ he read aloud, shaking his head. He sure as hell hadn’t been this way on either of his previous walks up to the ward. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘We’ll find it.’
The corridor curved round to the right, hiding further oblique shapes until the motion sensors deigned to illuminate his path.
He found it unsettling that he hadn’t seen so much as a nurse or an orderly for a good few minutes now, and an uncomfortable prickling sensation was making its way up the nape of his neck.
Finally, the relief he sought appeared in the form of a sign for the exit. To his bleary eyes, it was as welcoming as the prospect of water in the desert.
He reached the doors to the staircase, but they were locked. He tried a little harder, in case his fear-sapped strength was making it hard to open them, but they were clearly locked.
‘Shit,’ he hissed.
A frantic glance around revealed an intercom unit on the wall. He pressed the button and the light at the bottom of the unit illuminated.
Naturally, it was blood red, making his face shine like that of a devil in the window glass of the locked door.
‘Sorry, this staircase gets locked up after ten,’ the voice on the other end of the intercom told him with a complete lack of sincerity. ‘Please use the lift through the next set of double doors.’
Darren thought about speaking up, about saying that he hated the very thought of sealing himself in a metal box that could detach itself from its cable at the drop of a hat, but he thought better of it.
Besides, the operator was already talking to another patron of the hospital.
‘Least it’s not just me they’re shitty with,’ he muttered and turned to find the lift they’d directed him to.
The next set of double doors creaked open with an ungodly sound that made his skin crawl.
Behind them the open lift doors waited for him like a predatory mouth. The light in the lift winked on and off.
‘Great. Just fucking great,’ he muttered, quickly making the sign of the cross before getting into the decrepit steel box.
3
Dwayne’s young ones had been halfway through devouring the latest offering when half the fucking village had descended upon the farm.
Torch beams lanced through the darkness, stinging his eyes and those of his feasting children.
He knew they were in the shit, was fully aware that this could be where they all perished, but vowed that he’d go to his grave for his family.
The car by the main part of the barn was out; there were a trio of gun-toting men surrounding it. Even if they had been able to get past them, a fourth man was grimly jabbing a kitchen knife into the tyres to disable the vehicle.
‘No place to run,’ one of them called out. There was no glee in his voice; it was merely the tone of someone doing what had to be done.
Dwayne snuck through the woods at the edge of the barn, pleased to see that he was heading in the opposite direction to the majority of the torch beams that were sweeping across the middle of the farmyard. His hands were clamped tightly over the mouths of his little ones, keeping in the panicked cries that they had uttered at the realisation that their home was no longer safe.
He allowed himself a smile when he heard a bloodcurdling cry, knowing that this heralded the discovery of the child’s mutilated body.
He was still smiling when someone stepped out from behind a tree, and wrapped something hard around his head.
4
The light in the lift extinguished for a couple of seconds, convincing Darren that he was about to plummet to a painful and messy death, then came back on, just before he dived out of the lift in a highly embarrassing fashion.
He took deep breaths, in a vain attempt at slowing his trip-hammering heart.
‘It’s just a fucking lift, Darren,’ he told himself, desperate to get some perspective on his childish fear.
The light blinked off again.
He counted.
One.
Two.
Three.
F—
It came on again, bathing him in sickly yellow light that was like manna from heaven.
He stared at the keypad, trying to figure out where he was supposed to go. ‘Must be G, ground,’ he muttered, jabbing it with a trembling finger.
The doors slid shut, pausing for a second at halfway, seemingly just to further put the shits up him, then the down arrow illuminated and the lift began to descend.
The lights went out again, and he comforted himself by counting.
Exactly three seconds later they were back on. Their dysfunction was comforting in its regularity.
The light above the button marked LG lit up and he fought a moment of panic as he realised he was headed for the lower ground floor.
He felt certain he’d jabbed the G button, but realised that, with the fatigue that had swamped his mind and body, it was more than possible he had made a mistake.
He jabbed G again, waited for the
lurch as the lift stopped and changed direction, but it didn’t come.
The lift stopped on LG, the doors remaining closed for a long, drawn-out second.
His finger hammered the G button like a drumstick on a snare.
‘Come on,’ he muttered.
The lights went out.
He drew in a deep breath, counted to three. The lights came back on.
The lift still hadn’t moved, the doors still wedged shut.
He jabbed G again, fighting back panic now.
Again the lights went out.
He counted to three, but this time the lights didn’t come back on, instead the lift remained in darkness so absolute that he feared he’d gone blind.
The only light in the box that he suddenly, irrationally, became certain was about to become his tomb was the illuminated LG, mocking him.
The doors opened by a few inches but abruptly stopped, allowing warm air to flood in through the gap.
He stared at the control panel, trying his best to figure out the legends over the buttons in the darkness. His hesitant fingers moved over the raised legends like a novice braille reader.
Finally, he made out one that said, SOS.
He jabbed it, cursing when nothing seemed to happen.
After a slight delay, a voice came in, filling the lift with a volume that startled.
Trapped there in the darkness, it may as well have been the voice of God.
‘God’ was a surly teenager, with even more attitude on show than the fucker who’d told him to use the lift in the first place.
‘Can I help you?’ the girl said, punctuating her request with a loud pop of her bubblegum.
Darren’s feelings of fear and frustration came out of him despite his best attempts to stop them. ‘For Christ’s sake, this death trap of a lift has broken down. I pressed for the ground floor, I’m certain I did. But this shitheap has gone a floor past that and stopped.’
The operator failed to stifle a chuckle. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Sincerity was obviously in short supply in this place, he reflected sourly.
