by Stuart Keane
"No luck?" Stephen asked.
Alex didn’t answer. He turned around and studied a narrow archway in the blue wall. The opening was flanked by four steel cabinets, and wall-mounted wooden shelves containing an array of mobile phone accessories. Alex studied them for a moment before walking forward.
"You want to go in there?"
"We need a phone. What choice do we have?"
Stephen nodded. "None, but for the record, I wholeheartedly disagree with this."
"Duly noted."
Alex entered the archway and located a locked door with a numerical keypad. He reached out and tried the handle, and the door sucked open, the code already entered. Alex was overridden by a giddy smile as he quickly disappeared into the room. Stephen heard some clattering and shifting of stock. He gently placed a hand to the back of his head and grimaced when he felt the swelling there. Seconds later, Alex emerged with two slim white boxes and placed them on the desk.
He pushed one towards Stephen. "One for you, and one for me."
"No, thank you."
"C'mon. Now's your time to embrace the technology."
Stephen refused. "I'd rather stick my beloved penis in a blender."
Alex stuck out his tongue. "Urgh, gross."
"Besides, that locked door was way too easy. This, all of this, is too easy. And we can’t just take these."
"We aren't. I fully intend to pay for them. But first, we make the calls."
Alex ripped open his box, which contained a Samsung Galaxy 6, and pushed the power button. A tinkling melody sounded as the screen lit up. While it loaded, he checked the shelves behind him for a suitable charger. He grabbed a plastic container and placed it beside the torn box.
"I don’t like this," Stephen uttered, studying the abandoned desk.
"Duly noted. Again."
"Let's just go. We can take the phone with us."
"No. I need to ensure its working."
"Please, Alex."
"This won't take long. Just a seco –"
A glass bottle shattered over the back of Stephen's head, and the bar man crumpled to an unconscious heap on the floor. Alex glanced up at the sudden noise and saw three men standing before him. Alex backed off, holding his hands out to the side.
The man in the lead held out a crimson-soaked palm, one now bleeding profusely due to the lacerating edges of the smashed bottle. He scrunched the hand into a fist, causing blood to drip to the floor.
The other men moved in, flanking their leader, and blocking any exit.
Alex said nothing.
The man smiled. "How about you put those phones back. They’re mine."
FIFTEEN
Hannah slowly sat up, rubbed her drowsy eyes, and shot a glance at the wide blue expanse of the glistening pool, licking her dry lips as she did so. The heated effects of the sunbathing hastened her need to quench her sudden thirst. She rolled over and pushed herself to her feet, and looked down at the young girl beside her.
Mia was lying sideways on her towel, eyes closed, her chest gently rising and falling from the relaxation of a nap. Hannah smiled and moved away carefully, careful not to wake the child. As she did so, she heard Distin behind her, running in her direction, his arrival punctuated by a shrill scream of joy that only the boy could possess, and the familiar sound of slapping footsteps.
"Here we go," Hannah uttered beneath her breath. "Right on schedule."
She prepared herself and started to turn around, finger to her mouth to shush the child, and wholly expected an elaborate story about a fabricated sea-monster. Maybe it had tentacles this time, or four heads, or teeth the size of skyscrapers. Maybe it had become a fire-breathing dragon and evolved into a mystic flying beast, or there were two of them wreaking havoc on the pool itself. For all of his quirks as a developing child, solvable quirks that his parents were more than aware of, Distin's creative imagination was certainly on point.
The woman looked at the boy, and expected an outburst of the imaginary.
Instead, she witnessed nothing but sheer horror.
Hannah stepped back and screamed.
"Hann … Hann … what's going … going on…"
The left side of Distin's face was slowly slithering away from his fizzling skull; the skin dislodged, dribbled and slid from his young face in large crumpled shards of fleshy pink, and spattered his thin pale chest with heavy droplets of dark red. Masticated globs of raw flesh and blood violently spattered the white tiles beneath the boy, spraying outwards and spattering the surrounding plants and loungers with specks of bright crimson, crimson that seemed more electric and vibrant in the fierce sunlight.
Hannah couldn’t believe her eyes.
That wasn't a scream of joy.
Not in the slightest…
Distin still struggled to find his words as he stumbled forward, a feat made more difficult as his quivering lips curled and toppled from his melting face. The slippery slugs of flesh slapped the blood-soaked tiles with a solid squelch, and the boy unwillingly stamped on them with unbalanced feet as he desperately sought help, ignorant to the facial loss as he surged forward in unadulterated terror. "What … Hannuuh … whasssssss…"
Hannah reared away, and fought the overwhelming urge to vomit and scream like a wild woman as she stared incredulously at the injured boy, and placed a hand against her gaping mouth in an effort to calm herself. Distin slumped to one knee as his thin arm stretched towards his mortified babysitter, his futile efforts for help – help that wouldn’t even begin to assist his ailment – ignored.
Distin … no … no!
The boy staggered towards her and pushed off his bloody knees as his tiny body began to break down on him. Hannah yelped and noticed the impossible position of Distin's outstretched arm. The limb was sickeningly arched in the middle, the force of gravity curving the limb downwards in a veering slope, in the centre between hand and elbow, turning it into a pale, fleshy bow void of any arrows or string. As if the bones were no longer structurally sound.
This can't be happening…
This isn't happening…
And then the frail hand flopped too, it's natural mooring suddenly compromised by whatever was evolving the poor boy into a damn circus freak before her disbelieving eyes, and turned the entire limb into a dangling thread of grotesque human spaghetti. The rigid sturdiness of the fingers and elbow seemed to disappear as the floppy limb collapsed, slapped the boy's sizzling hip and drooped to his side. The elastic limb stretched and shredded away from his pulpy shoulder with a sickening squelch as the skin split like weak rubber, the anatomical debris pattering the floor with yet more blood and molten flesh.
Hannah felt faint, and forced herself away from the brink of unconsciousness with a quick, vicious slap. The sight of the unimaginable body horror, combined with the coppery stench of spilt blood, the chemical tang of chlorine and the pungent bodily fluids that were now streaming from every orifice of the dying boy, some old and some newly created by the transformation, was instantly overwhelming.
The sound of liquid hissing filled the warm air, and that's when Hannah observed a thousand vile black holes quickly manifesting themselves in the pores of Distin's remaining flesh, minuscule voids that widened in unison and revealed the smouldering black abyss of the young human form beneath, a form that should have contained rich red blood and pink sinew of muscle and brilliant ivory of bone, yet contained nothing but an unexplainable human darkness. Hannah gagged at the sight of the blackened innards, and finally realised what was happening to the boy.
He was melting.
Both inside and out.
Oh my God…
As if to confirm this, dribbling trails of black sludge began to ooze from each of the expanding holes, coating the dying boy's skin – or what remained of it – in a sticky, tar-like substance. Hannah searched for any resemblance of Distin in that evolving monstrosity, to see if anything remained of the innocence that once existed, but she saw nothing but bloody pulp and liquified flesh. The re
mains of his tiny body toppled to the tiles and lay there, inert, as whatever was killing him finished the job. Blistering flesh melted away and formed into dark puddles, soaking into a bunch of abandoned towels and splashing across the tiles.
It washed into the pool.
The water also neared her toes, and Hannah flinched backwards with a yelp, distancing herself from the unspeakable horror. As if nothing had happened, Distin was no more than a wide purple pool of slimy mucus on the tiles, like someone had spilt a large cup of juice.
Hannah looked around, and realised that the entire sequence of grotesque events had occurred in less than thirty seconds. A group of stunned onlookers now surrounded her, having watched the carnage in utter disbelief. Some were on their phones, taking pictures and conversing with people unknown, some were discarding the contents of their stomachs, and others were quickly ushering their children from the pool. As if reminded, Hannah knelt down and awoke Mia with a firm shake of her shoulder. The girl roused, and looked up with an innocent smile.
Thank God, she didn’t see that.
Hannah quickly removed Mia from the frantic scene, and remained quiet as the morbid onlookers surged past them, towards the purple pool of fluid, unsure of what they had just bore witness to, a number of questions on their confused lips.
"What the hell was that?"
"Did you see that?"
"Was that a boy?"
"It's a prank!"
"Was it some kind of publicity stunt? Shame on them."
"A horror film. There you go. Someone's filming, right?"
Hannah noticed the palpable tension in their wavering voices and futile debate, the unstable potency in their unsettled demeanour. Surprisingly, many of them were nonplussed about their own children at that exact moment, who still frolicked in the pool beside them without a care in the world. Hannah's eyes darted from woman to man to child, and back again, assessing each for potential threat, the safety of her children suddenly a priority. "Mia, get up. We need to find the others."
"Distin and Aria are in the tropical pool. Hayley and Cayden went –"
"I know where they are," Hannah said, swallowing hard at the mention of Distin's name. She fought the urge to breakdown, to weaken in front of the vulnerable child. She could explain to Mia later … maybe, if the mysterious answers became clear. She stooped to the girl's level. "You need to come with me, help me round them up, okay?"
Mia nodded quietly, noting the urgency in Hannah's voice.
"Let's do it now. Quickly and –"
The screams started.
It began with one deep growl of shock that reverberated around the dome, a petrifying noise that stopped everyone dead in their tracks and ushered in waves of gooseflesh for dozens of people. A shrill second soon followed, one that pierced the average ear drum and chilled Hannah to the very bone. A chorus of vocal eruptions from various parts of the glass-domed emporium soon shattered the calm that seemed to transfix everyone. Men, women, children.
For a tense moment, everything stood still.
And then, the fight or flight reaction was like a sudden lightning bolt.
Silence transcended to a wild frenzy within mere seconds.
Hannah cupped Mia's ears and pulled her into her lap, slowly backing her away from the crowd, expecting the worst as the mob before them erupted into unbridled panic and darted in all directions. From what exactly, Hannah could not see at that moment, but she knew for certain that they had no way through.
The woman glanced quickly to her left, noticed the raised cafeteria and its glass-surrounded forecourt, and clutched the girl's arm. Hannah pulled Mia away from the mob, and within seconds, the people surged across the spot where they had stood only seconds before. She gulped, realising that Mia, and possibly herself, would have surely been crushed in that terrified rush. She didn't dwell on the maybes, and forced herself into defensive action. Hannah hoisted Mia into her arms and sprinted up the long wooden ramp to the cafeteria, as primal panic exploded behind her. She didn’t look back as she reached the entrance, pushed through the glass doors and slammed them closed.
Hannah located the safety latch in the centre of the door and locked it behind her, darted across the eatery, and placed Mia in a corner booth. Her small frame hardly gave the leather cushions any hassle as she plonked down with a gentle slap, oblivious to the yet-unknown horrors that were unfolding just a few metres from them. Hannah shut her eyes for a moment, as the subdued silence of the cafeteria provided some brief respite.
Yet, outside, the screams were manic and deafening, constant and chaotic.
"What's going on?" Mia asked, stifling a yawn.
Hannah wiped the hot sweat from her forehead. "I … I don't know."
"But you know everything."
Hannah pursed her lips, and recalled the graphic carnage from moments ago. Relived it in slow motion, several times, with a tremendous shudder. She recalled the utter despair on young Distin's face as he died right before her eyes, melted right in front of her, and despite the heart-breaking circumstances, she couldn’t hold back a disbelieving chuckle as she answered the child, "Apparently not."
Mia grinned at the comment, but said nothing.
Hannah ran a hand through her hair. "Wait here. Don't … don't look outside. You hungry?"
Mia slowly nodded.
Hannah scanned the counter and grabbed two laminated food menus. She placed them on the table in front of Mia and pointed. "Pick what you want. You can have anything. Cake, dessert, chips, whatever you want. No rush. We'll be in here for a while."
Mia's eyes widened at such a prospect. "I want a Pepsi."
"Very well."
"And ice cream." Then, she looked at her babysitter with a sly squint, sensing a shift in the mood. "Why, where are you going?"
"What do you mean?"
"You're trying to keep me distracted."
Hannah sighed. "How do you even know that?"
"I know things too," Mia uttered, with a cheeky smile.
"You're too clever for your own good," Hannah conceded.
"I know," Mia said, flippantly.
"And I'm not going anywhere, not really. I just need to check something. I'll be right over here," Hannah said, pointing to the corner of the cafeteria. She paused and studied the child, aware of her tendency to wander, to seek out new adventure in order to further her education. She didn’t want the girl to witness anything beyond these four walls, not yet, and not at all if she could help it. "You promise you'll stay there?"
Mia nodded.
"Don't move from that chair. Promise me."
"I promise."
Hannah bit her lip, and waited two more seconds as Mia lowered her head and scanned the menu, hands in lap. She didn’t look up, didn’t seem interested in moving. Hannah felt a sudden surge of panic boiling within, and buried it deep.
Mia, and the other kids, are what matter.
Don't get scared.
Not yet, anyway.
You need to get them out of here.
Hannah turned, took a deep breath, and reluctantly walked to the window, a wide stretch of glass that covered one side of the cafeteria and gazed out onto the pool. The height of the cafeteria gave paying customers the perfect platform from which to watch in awe, to observe as their loved ones enjoyed their day away from home. As she approached the glass, and started to see the full picture beyond, she felt her hand reaching out to steady herself, as the magnitude of the bloody chaos before her finally hit home.
Then, Hannah stared down at Pentwyn Leisure Centre, and felt her mouth opening.
"Dear fucking God…"
The ageless white tiles so fondly associated with Pentwyn Leisure Centre were now awash with glistening red and hidden beneath several mutilated bodies, and upon further inspection with a reluctant eye, she realised that the vibrant blue of the pool was now dark and cloudy with spilt bodily fluids.
Hannah didn’t know where to look first.
This is what hell looks like, s
he thought.
An overweight man with considerable body hair scrabbled and crawled from the pool with desperately flailing arms, the bottom of his plump body splintered at the waist, his broken legs and trailing innards sloshing in the water behind him like a grotesque tail. As he fought to survive, an action that sluiced more blood into the tainted water, a fleeing child slipped and fell into the pool behind him, and found his small frame entangled in the man's coiling intestines. The child struggled to surface as the organs denied him sufficient movement, and began to drown, his tiny hands slapping at the surface of the bloody water in frantic terror. Hannah placed the back of her hand to her mouth as she noticed that the man's hair had slipped away from his skull. The scalped hairpiece floated away on the pink water that deluged the edge of the pool, the dead man's final resting place.
What is happening…
A mother furiously sprinted towards the exit with her baby bundled into her blood-soaked arms. The archway and the foot bath were blocked by a sea of absconding people, all of whom were desperate to escape the unfathomable horror. The crowd pulsed and throbbed as people pushed for freedom, but evidently went nowhere. With no other option, the mother gave up, staggered back to the pool, and sought a different means of escape, which is when Hannah realised that the baby was nothing more than a mutilated skeleton wrapped in a torn, blood-drenched towel, the small bones slathered in sliding globs of seared muscle and scorched flesh, and that's when the coiling smoke coming off the dead corpse became apparent.
The woman looked down at her child, screamed at the grotesque sight, and hurled the baby into the pool like it was nothing. The bundle slapped the water and unspooled, the towel sunk to the depths below, and the brittle bones scattered across the surface before disappearing in several dark clouds of blood. The smoke continued to coil into the air as whatever had consumed the child now continued its wrath on the woman's ample, bikini-clad chest, and the mother hysterically slapped at the burns in vain.
A stumbling man shoved into her, knocking her sideways. The woman's neck snapped as she lurched to the side and viciously collided with the edge of a blood-soaked lounger, and suddenly, her dissolving chest was no longer a concern. As the woman's corroding body came to a rest, her eyes liquified and oozed from the sockets. Seconds later, her skin slacked and slowly dribbled off the sinewy muscle, like fat on a spit-roasted chicken. The man who caused her death spun on the spot and screamed mercilessly for help as his arms stretched and shredded from their sockets. One landed on the tiles with a slap, the fingers reaching to the heavens, and the other landed on the dead woman's back, like a final grotesque embrace. The man's neck suddenly collapsed with a nauseating crack, and Hannah held back a scream as his head dropped and disappeared between his shoulders, spraying the surrounding foliage with a several arcs of vermilion. The body toppled into the pool, and disappeared from sight.
