The HUM: The complete novel

by Michael Christopher Carter

  If the aliens, (if that’s what this huge craft represented; she was happy to consider secret military developments from whatever country), had come for her or Ebe again, could she do anything? She knew the answer was no. Nothing.

  “You must let Ebe go,” Marco interjected.

  What was he bringing that up again for? Carys glared. Did he think that pressuring her to move to Italy, while a god-knows-what hovered terrifyingly above their heads, would take her mind from it?

  As the car continued its journey to the hotel, the enormous craft seemed just as close, reminding Carys of how the moon always seems the same no matter where you travel. How big was this thing?

  She allowed herself a tentative glimpse through trembling fingers to look firmly at it, fear making it as difficult to bear as staring at the sun.

  It could be man-made, she decided. Not a hologram as Marco suggested, but something. She imagined a bushman seeing a helicopter; he’d be terrified, wouldn’t he? Because he wouldn’t know what it was? If this behemoth flying craft was some secret new invention, it shouldn’t make it something to fear.

  She forced her gaze to examine it further. As she peered, she could make out windows where they were close enough. And then figures, moving behind what she still assumed to be glass, were visible.

  It was too far to be absolutely certain, but to Carys’s eyes they were not human figures. They were the same creatures who had visited her all her life; now clearly here for all to see.

  Unable to keep her composure any longer, she felt the juddering before she saw it, and when she looked, her hands were shaking violently. She clawed at the handle of the door.

  Opening it would be a bad idea at even the reduced speed the car was forced to travel on these windy roads on the rural outskirts of the city. She was probably lucky her quivering hands proved too weak and clumsy to be effective.

  She sat back in her seat, pushing back hard into it with her feet planted firmly on the floor of the car’s foot well. Trying to achieve nothing that made any sense, she fought against her own physicality as though she didn’t recognise from where a threat could come.

  A glance at her husband showed him smiling wryly as he drove, as if everything was totally normal. Was he whistling, Carys detected incredulously?

  As she thrust back in her seat and peered at Marco, she jolted with alarm. A squeal escaped her lips as she couldn’t trust her eyes.

  She shook her head, desperate to bring reality back. What she witnessed now couldn’t be real.

  Marco wasn’t himself.

  His features changed.

  For a mere micro-second, he morphed into something else.

  She couldn’t tear her eyes from Marco as his features morphed before her eyes. Aware of her staring, he stole a glance from the road towards her. His features immediately returned to normal, but Carys remained petrified. He saw the terror, and smiled broadly.

  Still looking directly at her, Marco’s features transformed once again.

  At the first sign of the change, Carys’s heart burst into overdrive, fuelling her desperate escape. As she strove to tear her gaze away from the morphing face of her husband, she clawed at the door handle with a panic that was unlikely to afford her success.

  She kept scrabbling, and Marco kept smiling. His face now completely resembling that of a reptile.

  Not a lizard, or a snake, more a reptilian human. Why he appeared this way Carys didn’t have time to decipher. If she hadn’t seen the change, she could almost believe it to be a sick joke. A mask from a film set, or something that he’d worn in some sick attempt at humour.

  Her mind clutched any logical straw it could conceive, as Carys’s terror consumed her.

  As if to quell any doubts, Marco allowed his forked tongue to slither in and out of his scaly mouth.

  Carys, unable to run, lunged at the monster that used to be her husband and struck him firmly in the throat, as was her usual fight response. The car swerved, but it failed to have the debilitating effect of her past strikes, and left her feeling even more endangered and powerless.

  Prizing her eyes away from his repugnant features long enough to be sure she had a firm grasp on the door handle, she yanked it hard, but the door failed to open. Marco had deployed the child lock, a feature operated by a switch on the driver’s door.

  Carys wrenched the door handle a few more times before her brain allowed her the realisation of what must have happened. She lunged at the monster again, this time her furious fists struck at his large, lidless eyes. Certain she had caused him pain, she frantically persisted.

  It was time for Marco to flail at buttons. Upon recognising the familiar click of the child-lock deactivating, Carys pushed hard with her feet against the centre console, simultaneously snatching the door open.

  She thrust powerfully with her legs and launched herself from the car. Marco grabbed at her with reptilian webbed fingers, but he was too late. She was free of his grasp and free of the car.

  With no thought to the speed they were travelling, or whether there was other traffic ready to cut her down, she just had to get away.

  She had got away, and she was free, but at what cost?

  Her arms broke her fall as she tumbled spectacularly into a ditch. She couldn’t feel much pain, but she knew something wasn’t right.

  Her head. Yes, there was definitely pain in her head, she managed to think before looking at the bright lights of the UFO. Or was it a police car, or an ambulance; she couldn’t tell.

  Her eyes closed, and she didn’t care anymore.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Carwyn is an Alien

  Memories of the night were hazy. The looming face of a policeman peering at her; people asking her name; prodding and poking her as she lay immobilised, strapped to a bed.

  She flinched at the memory. Was it them? Had it been them that had done things to her again? Suppressing a scream in her throat, she was petrified who would come in response to her cries.

  The constant beep, beep, beep of a machine nearby and people, yes definitely people; not them, she was sure. Retching at the memory of bland, tasteless food brought her to her senses.

  After jolting up to clear the choking, she slumped back down. She remembered where she was, and her thoughts stalled. She couldn’t raise enough consciousness to be bothered. Her limbs lay motionless at her side. Muttering extremities, she fell back asleep.

  A figure looming over her stirred her what could have been minutes or hours later.

  “Come on. You’re being moved today. Back to Wales. St Cara-dogs, to be precise.”

  “St Ca-radog’s”, Carys corrected the poor Welsh pronunciation, emphasising the penultimate syllable. She needn’t ask what that meant. It was the secure mental health unit at Haverfordwest, back in Pembrokeshire. After the main hospital had closed the mental health ward had been extended. There seemed to be a need for it.

  Carys was guided groggily to a waiting ambulance. Someone helped her up the steps and strapped her into a chair where she promptly fell unconscious again.

  Her consciousness clawed its way back to the surface of her mind’s mire just in time to see the tall struts of the big bridge - the bridge, across which, lay her home. But was it still a home anymore? Where was Ebe? Where was Marco?

  A sudden recollection of his last appearance to her made her scream out, legs flailing in a futile attempt of escape.

  “Pipe down, you. Do you need another shot?” the menacing sneer of her chaperone threatened.

  “We’ll keep a welcome in the hillside…” Forcing the words through parched lips, she was determined not to be repressed.

  “Pipe down, I said!”

  She mumbled the rest of the song welcoming her back to Wales under her breath with tears streaming down her face. They crossed the bridge, and the toll was paid to allow them entry to the Principality.

  She was in trouble again, wasn’t she? Just as she had been more than twenty years ago when she’d traversed the vast Se
vern estuary to her new home

  “Did I miss my son’s graduation?” she spluttered.

  “I have absolutely no idea. Now hush, will you? I’m trying to do a crossword here,” the crewman grumbled. As tears streamed down Carys’s face, tissues were fanned in her face along with instructions to blow her nose.

  The scenery flashing past now failed to inspire her as it had on the opposite journey yesterday. Was it yesterday even, or some day in the past? She didn’t bother asking. The ambulance crew wouldn’t know; she wasn’t sure she could cope with knowing either.

  They arrived, after several hours, at the familiar buildings at what had been Withybush General Hospital, and was now a renal unit. Opposite that, bright and new, almost cheery, stood Bro Cerwyn day centre for the mentally ill; its cheer, a futile attempt to inject optimism into the patients. Beyond that, the secure mental health facility didn’t bother with such niceties.

  Carys peered at the many windows and wondered which would be her home, and for how long.

  “Why am I here? How long am I expected to stay?” she asked with a child-like innocence. The prick of tears burned the back of her eyes. Why was she here? If she didn’t know what had led to her being forced to stay here, how could she know what she had to get better from to be allowed to leave.

  “You’ll have to ask the doctor when you see him. Now come on. Don’t dawdle.”

  Carys did as she was told. She had no fight left in her. Stood with the driver and the other crewman in the foyer of the ward, they exchanged words with the nurse behind the glass window. A small flap opened like the parcel pass-through of a post office, and some paperwork was passed through.

  The same nurse, wearing everyday street clothes of jeans, trainers and a hoody, came out, typed something into the keypad and the door slid open.

  “Hello, Carys. We’re all ready for you,” she declared, before turning to the ambulance crew. “Thank you. We’ll take it from here.”

  They left without word to Carys. No well-wishing, and no good bye. Carys couldn’t care less. She preferred the calm woman before her than the morose company she’d been forced to keep for the past seven hours.

  “Come on,” she smiled. “Let’s get you settled in.” Carys followed her into the corridor.

  Suddenly, a tall man, probably in his late thirties, burst from a door, guitar at his chest, greasy brown locks curling into his eyes as he shook hair from his face. Strumming loudly whilst devoid of talent, the noise he produced was more than unpleasant, but at least it went some way to drown out the shrieking of his vocal proffering. He strutted up and down the corridor as though performing to an adoring crowd.

  The nurse with Carys walked on un-phased. When the guitar legend made level with them, he thrust out a friendly hand for Carys to shake. She took it reluctantly.

  “Hello, I’m Mike,” he declared. “Do you like music?” he asked, as if what he had been playing related to music in some way.

  “Er, no. I’m okay thanks,” replied Carys, not wanting to encourage another unmusical outburst.

  She continued ambling with the nurse, leaving a despondent Mike standing in her wake. She followed the nurse into a small room. When the door was closed, she heard Mike’s guitar mutilating cacophony revive.

  “Now then, Carys. My name is Andrea. I’m one of the psychiatric nurses here.” She glanced down at paper on a clipboard. “You’ll continue on the chlorpromazine 1000mg until Doctor Lewis’s ward round on Monday. Your room is just being checked, and then I’ll take you down there.” Carys stared blankly. Andrea continued, undeterred.

  “I have a few things for you to sign, and then I can show you around if you like?” She thrust some papers towards Carys, who diligently signed them where indicated. Andrea led her to a room near the front door containing a pool table and a television, and in the darkest recess, a shelf with some dog-eared books and tatty board games.

  A shudder clutched Carys’s heart at a childhood memory of a very similar room from one of her mother’s falls from sanity. Now she’d never see her again. The spike of emotion crippled her. Dropping to the floor, she broke into uncontrollable sobs.

  “What is it Carys, bach?” Andrea asked, bending over her. Carys sobbed silently. A primal yell emanated piercingly from her lungs as she let out a cry that had been trapped within her for too long.

  “I want my mummy!” she screamed, repeating the cry over and over.

  Andrea called short the tour, and getting the nod that her room was ready, took her promptly there. “I’ll go and get your medication for you. I don’t think you’ll be up for queuing with the rest of them tonight.”

  Carys lay on the bed, foetal, waiting for the kind nurse to return with her pills. It wasn’t long before she arrived with a cup of water and a smaller cup containing a few tablets. Carys took them greedily, as if they were the answer to all her problems.

  Andrea helped her put on some pyjama’s that she didn’t recognise as being her own, and invited her to settle down. She reassured she’d be around if Carys needed her, and with that, she left Carys to her woes.

  She lay on the bed and waited for the medication to take the edge off her pain, and to allow her sanctuary of sleep once more.

  Jolting back to full alertness, the door to her room banged against the wall as it flew open, and in walked a rather short gentleman of senior age. In a thick Welsh accent he announced “Carwyn is an alien. Carwyn is an alien!” before dropping his trousers and urinating on the floor.

  Carys screamed at him “Get Out!”

  “Carwyn is an alien,” he insisted, turning from side to side, spreading the foul liquid liberally.

  A male CPN and another female nurse rushed in, muttering their apologies and ushering Carwyn from the room.

  “Come on now, Carwyn. You mustn’t do that.”

  “Do you want to pop down to the rec room whilst we clean this up?” the female winced at her. Carys had little choice. “I’m so sorry,” the female nurse apologised. “It used to be his room, you see.”

  As an explanation, Carys felt it lacked satisfaction, but nodded and smiled her understanding nevertheless. The new nurse showed her down to the rec room, which was the room she’d seen earlier with the pool table. It was empty, and she had to fumble around for the light switch.

  Shuffling over to the squalid sofa, she peered at it before deciding its stained grubby fabric was not something she’d like to touch. She seethed at the sickening filth, not just of the couch, but of the reason she was stood facing it – fresh and pungent urine.

  The room was plunged into darkness. And then the lights flickered on again; then off, then on again.

  “Leave the bloody light switches alone, Raymond!” it was Mike’s voice again, mercifully this time, without his guitar to accompany him. Carys looked up at who had been messing with the light switch to see a slight built man of restricted height. A pointy beard gave him the appearance of a wizard or an elf. Raymond replied in an indiscernible mumble that still managed to convey his displeasure.

  “You get out, you!” Mike ordered in what seemed to Carys an unreasonably aggressive tone. He used his arm to guide Raymond from the room. Raymond left under the coercion, and proceeded down the corridor switching on and off and on and off any light switch he passed along the way.

  “He’s my brother, he is,” Mike garbled “I’m sorry about him. I’m Mike,” he thrust out his hand again. Carys reluctantly shook it for the second time.

  “Yeah. I’m sorry about him,” he repeated. Carys reassured it was okay. She didn’t care about the lights.

  “He doesn’t look like your brother,” she commented. Mike insisted he was, and seemed hurt at Carys’s scepticism.

  “Never let ‘im get you in a corner!” he blurted from nowhere. “He’ll ‘av you by the throat!” he hissed, hidden behind his hand. Carys’s first thought was, whilst that would be unpleasant, she felt sure she could overpower the weedy little man. “He’s stronger than he looks,” Mike declared, a
s though privy to her thoughts.

  Slouched over the pool table, he pushed what balls were still present from the majority of absentees, from one end of the table to the other.

  “You like to play pool?” he muttered, setting the scant remains into the surprisingly present triangle.

  “Okay,” she agreed. He looked delighted.

  “You’ll never beat me,” he announced proudly. Carys didn’t care. It was still a distraction.

  After a few shots, it became clear Mike’s prediction of invincibility was wildly exaggerated. He was quite hopeless. Connecting the cue with the white ball was dexterity which escaped Mike. Coaxing it in the right direction to strike another ball of the appropriate colour, and guide that ball into any of the pockets, looked unlikely ever to happen.

  Carys, who had until now felt lacking in pool skills, was winning effortlessly. Watching Mike’s growing agitation she decided she should probably let him win when he dug his fingernails into his face whilst letting out a tormented squeal of anguish.

  As his fingers returned to the cue handle, blood trickled down his face in dirty lines, giving him the appearance of a horror film poster.

  Mike perked up quickly as Carys struggled to let him win. She decided it would take forever for Mike to pot all the balls. He kept miscuing and insisting Carys take the extra penalty shots won from his fouls. Eventually, her own skill severely wanting, she managed to pot the black and then the cue ball into the same pocket, immediately forfeiting the game. Mike beamed.

  “I told you you wouldn’t beat me. I always win.” He began chalking his cue again. “Best of three?” he offered. Carys was horrified.

  “No, no. You’re too good for me,” she blurted. “I hate losing.”

  “I’ll go easy on you, if you like,” Mike offered magnanimously. Carys struggled to stifle her own distress when she was rescued, sort of, by another figure entering the rec room.