by Amy Cross
“Listen, buddy,” Freeman continued, “I don't know what kind of parasite you've got, but that's a hell of a -”
Before he could finish, the deer opened its mouth and let out a horrified cry, as if it was experiencing the most agonizing pain. Stumbling toward him, the animal briefly dropped to the ground before staggering back up and making its way forward again, while another tendril began to slip out through its eye socket, pushing the eyeball all the way out in the process.
“This isn't right,” Freeman muttered, taking several steps back before stopping and aiming the rifle again. “Whatever you are -”
The deer lunged at him, letting out a cry of pain that sounded almost like a scream.
Pulling the trigger, Freeman shot the animal in its remaining eye, causing its head to instantly explode in a shower of bone and meat. Stepping back and turning away as he felt a thick spray of splatter hitting him, Freeman winced as he took another step back, and then he turned back to see that the deer had dropped down to the ground. The entire front of its head had been blown apart, leaving dark red blood to flow freely down onto the forest floor, but the animal's legs were still flailing and while Freeman told himself that this was just a post-mortem twitch, he finally watched in horror as the creature began to slowly haul itself back up until it was once again in a standing position.
Around the edge of the partially-exposed brain, several thin black tendrils were poking up and reaching into the air, forming a morbid crown of death.
Suddenly the deer stepped toward him again and the remains of its lower jaw dropped down, allowing a faint gurgle to erupt from its face.
“Hell, no!” Freeman said, raising the rifle again and firing another shot, this time blowing off the rest of the head and a section of neck.
The animal fell down again, but its legs refused to stop moving and a moment later it began to rise. Half a dozen thick tendrils were poking out through the neck stump, flicking their tips in the air.
“Fuck this,” Freeman muttered, opening the rifle to get rid of the spent shells before taking two more cartridges from his pocket and reloading. “You need to learn when to stay down, my friend.”
Just as he closed the rifle again, the deer began to run at him.
Instinctively, Freeman raised the barrel and fired twice, falling back in the process and landing hard on the forest floor. He clambered back up, staring in wide-eyed horror at the remains of the deer. Most of the animal's shoulder area had been destroyed, along with a significant chunk of its chest, but this merely exposed the writhing mass of black tendrils that seemed to have spread up through the torso. One of the deer's front legs had been blasted away and the other was hanging on only by a strip of flesh, but the rear two legs were still kicking as they tried to get the rest of the deer back up.
Removing the spent cartridges from his rifle, Freeman loaded his final two shots and then stepped around the deer, aiming at its flank. He paused for a moment, watching the tendrils as they continued to writhe, and then he fired twice, blowing the entire torso apart and finally standing back.
All that was left of the deer was a mass of fur and meat and blood, with several severed tendrils twitching and flapping in the center until they, too, fell still.
For a few seconds, Freeman could do nothing more than stare at the carcass. He'd experienced plenty of strange things during his time as a landsman, but he'd always been able to explain them eventually, and he'd always felt that they were at least partially linked to the real world. This time, however, he felt as if he'd encountered a creature that defied his most fundamental understanding of nature itself. Finally stepping closer, he stared down at the mass of meat and bone, and he saw that some of the black tendrils were wrapped around the deer's spine. With the butt of his rifle, he nudged the body, half-expecting the tendrils to burst back to life, but after a moment he allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief.
Heading back to the truck, he grabbed another section of tarpaulin and laid it on the ground. Using his rifle, he pushed the deer's corpse onto the tarpaulin and then carefully – without actually touching the body – he rolled it up tight before hauling the heavy load up and placing it on the back of the truck. Whatever kind of parasite was in the deer's body, he wanted to get it to his sister so she could take a look, and in the back of his mind he couldn't help wondering if he'd encountered a more advanced version of the strange black object that had been found in the squirrel. As more drops of rain began to fall, he took a section of rope and started to secure the tarpaulin, just in case.
“Jesus!” he shouted, as a black tendril flicked out from beneath the tarpaulin and struck his bare arm.
Chapter Thirteen
As soon as she opened her eyes, Lizzie knew something was wrong.
In the dark cabin, she stared across her pillow and saw that a patch of moonlight had fallen through the rain-spattered window onto the wall nearby, illuminating the carving that she and the others had noticed earlier:
Lucy + Kate + Sophie + Ally forever.
She stared at the names for a moment, wondering why they filled her with a sense of unutterable dread, before she realized she could hear someone moving in the room. She looked over at Laura's bed and saw that she seemed to be sleeping soundly, and she could hear Kirsty's gentle snores, which meant...
Turning slightly, she looked across the dark cabin and saw that Beth was sitting up on the edge of the other bed, seemingly staring at the wall.
For several minutes, Lizzie waited. She figured she'd just spotted Beth on the verge of heading out to the toilet, or perhaps on her way back, but slowly she began to realize that something else was happening. As her eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness, she was able to make out Beth's face: stony and expressionless, staring at the opposite wall as if she'd discovered a new-found fascination for bare wooden surfaces. There was something unusual about her posture, too: she was sitting up completely straight, almost as if she had a rod in her back.
Finally sitting up herself, Lizzie forced a smile.
No response. Beth didn't even turn to her.
“Hey,” Lizzie whispered eventually.
This time Beth's eyes twitched, but there was a noticeable pause before she slowly turned to acknowledge the fact that Lizzie was awake.
“You okay?” Lizzie asked.
Beth stared at her with the same blank expression that had filled her face when she'd been staring at the wall.
“I've got some pain-killers if you're out,” Lizzie whispered, keeping her duvet wrapped around her body. “Don't tell any of my doctors, but I've managed to build up quite a stash. What's your poison?” She paused. “Not actual poison, obviously, although I do know a few tricks.”
At this, Beth tilted her head slightly to one side. The movement reminded Lizzie of her family's pet dog Jasper, and the way he'd tilt his head when he wasn't sure about something.
“You had us all really worried,” Lizzie continued, hoping to get the conversation moving. “You should have seen me and Laura out there in the forest looking for you, we bunked off toilet-cleaning duty and everything. I was starting to think maybe you'd fallen into the lake or...” She paused, feeling disconcerted by Beth's continued lack of response. “Well, you know, it just seemed odd that you weren't around.”
She waited.
Beth stared and stared.
“So I'm gonna go pee,” Lizzie said finally, getting to her feet and slipping into her trainers before grabbing her coat from the hook. “You'd think we could have en suite bathrooms, right? I mean, it's bad enough that we've all got cancer, without making us go outside when we need the toilet at night.” She smiled, hoping that Beth would do the same, but her smile quickly wilted as she realized that Beth was still just staring at her. “So that's what I'm gonna do,” she added after a few agonizing seconds. “I'm gonna go pee. Are you gonna be okay here?”
Beth's eyes seemed to narrow for a moment.
“Back soon,” Lizzie continued, turning and limpin
g over to the door, while trying to work out if she'd seen Beth blink even once during their aborted conversation. Pulling the door open, she was immediately hit by a gust of cold wind that made her reconsider the bathroom trip, but she was up now and her bladder felt full, so she stepped out and pulled the door shut before making her way down the steps and onto the grass. Light rain was falling all around, but not enough to make her turn back.
Above, a full moon hung above the hotchpotch collection of cabins, lighting them with an ethereal blue glow.
“Cold cold cold,” Lizzie muttered to herself as she half-ran across the grass, quickly clearing the last of the cabins and making her way down the faint slope that led to the three portable toilets by the edge of the forest.
Glancing over her shoulder, she looked back at the cabins and found herself wishing she was still in her (relatively) warm bed, but finally she reached the nearest toilet and headed inside, only to find that somehow it was even colder than being outside. Reaching back out, she pulled the plastic door shut.
“Fuck!” she could be heard exclaiming a moment later from inside the cabin. “Cold seat, cold seat...”
For the next minute or so, the three portable toilets stood silently in the moonlight, with the only sound being the occasional bump from the one closest to the cabin as Lizzie maneuvered herself around in the tight space. The rain was falling more steadily now, tapping the toilet's roof and running down the sides.
Another bump, causing the entire cubicle to shudder.
“Damn!”
As a couple more bumps sounded from inside, a faint rustle moved through the grass, edging toward the portable toilet until a shadow fell across the door and stopped.
“Oh God this is horrible!” Lizzie could be heard muttering from inside. “Thousands of years of human civilization and this is the best we can manage?”
Seconds later, the toilet could be heard flushing.
“I am never doing it like this again,” Lizzie continued, as the lock slid across and she pushed the door open, still pulling her pajamas up properly. “I'd rather squat down in the forest and risk having a squirrel -”
Stopping suddenly, she saw to her shock that Beth was standing just a few feet away, staring straight at her.
Lizzie opened her mouth to ask what she was doing, but the words seemed to hang in her throat.
“So,” she managed to say finally, able to see her own breath in the cold night air, “you... need to go too, huh?”
Beth continued to stare.
“You didn't have to wait for me to get finished,” Lizzie continued, stepping aside and holding the door open. “You could have gone in one of the other two.”
Slowly, Beth turned to look at the other two portable toilets.
“See?” Lizzie added. “There's more than one throne in this kingdom.”
“I...” Beth began to say, before turning back to face Lizzie. “Yes.”
“Yes?” Lizzie waited. “Yes what?”
Without replying, Beth stepped past her and made her way into the cubicle, before slowly turning to face Lizzie again. Not really knowing how to respond, Lizzie paused for a moment before slowly swinging the door shut. Taking a deep breath, she felt certain that if she opened the door again she'd find Beth still standing there, still staring.
“Good luck!” she called out finally, taking a couple of steps back.
She waited, but she didn't even hear the sound of the plastic lock being slid across.
“Okay,” she muttered, turning to head back toward the cabin, “I tried being social, I think I'll just -”
Suddenly she heard what sounded like a blast of liquid from inside the cabin. She turned, shocked by the sound, which echoed in her mind even though silence had already fallen again.
“Wh...” she began to say, before the cubicle's plastic door gently swung open and Beth stepped back out into the rain.
“Are you okay?” Lizzie asked.
“I'm okay,” Beth replied, wiping the side of her mouth. “Are you okay?”
“I'm very okay,” Lizzie said, unable to keep from frowning. “That was... quick...”
“I saw no reason to be slow.”
“No kidding.”
Lizzie paused, waiting for Beth to say something, before finally realizing that the onus was on her:
“So I'm gonna head back to bed,” she said finally, forcing a smile. “You coming to the cabin?”
With no answer forthcoming, Lizzie turned and began to make her way back across the grass. Her bare feet were already cold and wet thanks to holes in the side of her trainers, so she walked fast, constantly worried about how Beth might react. After daring herself for several paces, she finally glanced over her shoulder and saw that Beth was following, albeit at a very slow pace with calm, almost staccato steps. Forcing herself to look forward, she made her way to the cabin and then stopped. This time, when she looked back, she saw that not only was Beth walking at a normal pace, but she was limping.
On her left foot.
The same foot that had been causing Lizzie to limp since she'd cut it a day earlier.
“Are you copying me?” Lizzie whispered, shocked as Beth reached her.
“Hey,” Beth said as she pushed open the door to the cabin. “Are you okay?”
This time it was Lizzie's turn to stare silently, as she watched Beth limping inside. She told herself she was imagining things, that she was being paranoid, but she couldn't shake the feeling that in the course of their trip to and from the portable toilets, Beth seemed to have copied not only her walk, but even a couple of her mannerisms. Her contemplation of the situation was interrupted suddenly by a cold gust of wind that somehow managed to blow up the back of her coat and into her pajamas, sending a shiver through her body as she hurried into the cabin and pushed the door shut.
When she looked over at the nearest bed, she saw that Beth was already asleep, and that she was softly snoring. Just like Kirsty in the next bed along.
Chapter Fourteen
“We have a problem,” Freeman said as he pushed the door open and entered Crystal's office. “A really fucking serious problem.”
“I know,” she replied, looking up from the paperwork that was strewn across her desk. “It's almost midnight and I'm still going through this goddamn documentation. Don't worry, though. I'm sure we can ride out the storm.”
“Not that,” he said, pulling a section of black tendril from his coat pocket and dropping it in front of her. “This.”
“In the name of all that's holy,” she replied, shifting her chair back, “what is it?”
“I have no idea,” he continued, staring at her with barely-concealed anger, “but until about half an hour ago it was alive.” He held up his hand for her to see the thick cut that ran down from the base of his thumb to his elbow. “Nasty little bugger, too. Lashed out at me. I had to cut each tendril off one by one to make sure it was dead. There's plenty more of this thing in my truck.”
“Where did you find it?” she asked, getting to her feet and backing over to the window.
“It was hitching a ride in a deer.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“This thing, whatever it is, was inside a wild deer that I found about halfway down toward the lake. It's like some kind of parasite and it was...” He paused for a moment, trying to find a way to describe what he'd seen without sounding like a complete maniac. “The deer was dead,” he continued finally, “but the parasite was somehow animating the body and keeping it going, like some kind of goddamn zombie.”
Crystal stared at him.
“I'm deadly serious,” he told her. “There's something out there in the forest. This is the first time I've seen it in this kind of state, but I've found dead specimens before. Squirrels, birds, rodents, it doesn't seem very picky, it gets inside them and it kind of... drives them, controls them, wears them like a skin.” He picked up the severed tendril again and held it up for her to see.
“Get it away from me!” she
shrieked.
“Don't like it, huh?” he asked, throwing it toward her.
She stepped out of the way.
“That isn't even all of it,” he continued. “The creature in that deer had a kind of control center, like a shiny black mass with dozens of these tentacle things sticking out. Whatever it is, my sister has a sample from a smaller specimen at her lab and she's already started work to analyze it and try to match it to other reports.”
He paused, a little breathless, as he waited for a response.
“Well?” he said finally. “Are you actually going to say anything?”
“Such as?” she asked, raising her eyebrows. “You've finally lost your mind, Freeman. I suspected it was coming, but I didn't think it'd manifest like this. I thought you'd turn to drink, or recreational drugs, or perhaps schizophrenia, but this... This is something remarkable. Well done.”
“You don't believe me?”
“I believe you believe this fantastic tale, but -”
“You have to close the camp.”
“For God's sake...”
“You have to get everyone out of here,” he continued. “Until we find out what's causing this infestation, we have to take every precaution. There are two dozen people here, plus staff-members, and they could all be at risk!”
“From what? Some kind of oily black octopus that hides in deer?” Unable to stifle a chuckle, she picked up the tendril and examined it for a moment, before tossing it back at him. “You've been watching too many bad movies, Mr. Freeman, and maybe smoking something you shouldn't. Tell me, if I ordered you to take a drug test right now, would I find traces of marijuana in your system? Or has this whole story been concocted out of thin air?” She stepped toward him. “Are you trying to blackmail me?”
“I'm trying to save everyone at this camp,” he said firmly.
“I've seen your social media profiles,” she continued. “You're a conspiracy theorist. I should never have hired you in the first place but, well, with your history you were the cheapest person going. Plus, I like to help the more unfortunate members of our society.”
