by P W Hillard
It was early morning when something finally happened. There was a quiet metallic noise as the latch on her window slid slowly open, the hook raising on its own. Once unlocked, the window creaked open, revealing a shadow perched outside, its eyes glowing a bright vibrant red. The shadow scuttled into the room, tucking itself low to the ground on all fours. It was no ghost, instead, it was a small twisted thing. Its form and face were vaguely humanlike but its features were exaggerated, its nose bulbous and drooping, its teeth scraggly yellow stumps. It was covered in thick brown hair. Its legs and arms were thick and muscular, much too large for its otherwise small body. In all, the creature was less than three feet long. It scrambled up onto the bed, heaving itself with its great arms. With a thump, it dropped itself onto Emmaline's chest. The creature just sat there. It glanced around the room, adjusted its seating, and scratched itself in a manner the police report would later describe as “most unbecoming”.
The three of them rushed into the room as one. Jenkins bolted for the window, aiming to lock it before the thing could escape. Smith and Fredrick ran straight at the bed. The creature jolted, startled by the door crashing open and let out a horrid reverberating scream. It was deep, full of booming bass and it shook the room. It snarled, and leapt at Fredrick, its strong legs sending it soaring. It struck him, and he clattered to the ground. He tried to move, to push the thing off him, but couldn’t. His limbs didn’t listen, the creatures touch paralysing him, just as it did Emmaline. It hissed and raised its bulging arm. From here Fredrick could see that its fingers were tipped with jagged obsidian talons. It raised its arm high, posed to strike, its red eyes casting a baleful light. Then those infernal beacons went out. The creature slumped from Fredrick’s chest onto the ground. Blood began to pool around it. Thick, wet, and so dark that it was near black. A thick grey substance was leaking from the back of its head, escaping through its damaged skull. Smith stood there, heavy clothes iron in hand. It glistened with the same wet blackness.
“See,” said Smith, turning to Jenkins. “Like I said, an Iron does the job.”
Fredrick slipped the collection of paper into the filing cabinet. There had been much discussion in the office as to what the thing they had found in that room really was. Smith had petitioned for “nightmare demon”, Jenkins for the less catchy “arms and legs thing”. They had approached George Johnson who had advised that after some research he had found people blaming “shadow men” for their nighttime paralysis, so they had gone with that. Fredrick had to admit, he was disappointed not to have found a ghost. Still, there was always the next case. He sat down at the desk, picked up the next file from a precarious stack of paperwork, and began to read.
Chapter Twelve
Lucille groaned, placing the PlayStation controller onto the sofa. She sat there, her arms outstretched limp, head tilted back. She was wearing a plain grey jumper and sweatpants, legs resting on a cheap coffee table.
"I'm bored," she moaned. "At least at the bar, there were things to do, clearing tables, ordering stock. I thought that was boring, but I was wrong. Dead dead wrong. Can we not go back? You caught the one who did it. Well, not you, I caught the one who did it, but my point still stands."
Detective Sergeant Dale Cooper was sat on the opposite corner of the room in a large reclining lounge chair. He had extended the bottom of the chair, raising his legs up high. In his hands was a copy of Puzzler, pen in his mouth as he worked on the crossword emblazoned on the open page before him. He sighed, placed the pen between the pages and closed the magazine. "No," he said. "We can't go back. We think she wasn't working alone, so we can't until we are sure it's safe."
"Oh, come on," Lucille protested. "We can keep ourselves plenty safe, can't we Abbs?"
The sofas other occupant looked up at Lucille, resenting being dragged into the conversation. Abbie was wearing a set of black silk pajamas with a white-collar. She had not been impressed with Dale's Wednesday Adams joke when he had arrived at the safe house. "Fuck that," she said, shoveling ice cream into her mouth from the tub she was holding. "You didn't get shot full of nails, dirt in your face, and your dress ruined."
"Speaking of dresses," said Dale, "What's with all the suitcases in the hallway? There's like four of them. You were told to just bring the essentials."
Abbie shot up from her slouch, leaning towards Dale, her stomach resting on the sofa's arm. "Those are essentials! You know how much effort it is to keep my goth look! Everything takes up ten times the space it does for everyone else. The boots, the big dresses, the cases of makeup…"
Dale rolled his eyes. "I meant, your whole deal, the pair of you, means your appearance is partly a glamour. I'm not seeing your true forms right now. You don't need to bring clothes at all. You could just adjust the image you project."
Both women glared at Dale, their faces twisted scowls. "But then," said Abbie, "we would be naked."
"No one would ever be able to tell the difference. Who would even know?"
"We would know," said Lucille. "That's what matters."
Dale opened his mouth to answer but was interrupted by a loud knocking at the door. He kicked downwards, slamming the recliner closed. Dale stood up, placed the copy of Puzzler on the chair, and walked towards the front door. He peered through the peephole and was relieved to see his partner Rajan, and their trainee Aasif stood on the porch. "Good timing lads," said Dale as he pulled the door open. "I was starting to feel a little outnumbered."
Jess turned over her burger. It had come out of the microwave scalding hot at the bottom, causing her to swear profusely as she had tried to pick it up. She stood in the small kitchen area of the office, holding the plate in hands, steam rising from the cheap microwavable cheeseburger. Thick orange sauce was leaking down the sides of the bun. She sighed to herself, set the plate down on the plastic marble effect worktop, and stepped over to the kettle, pressing the on switch with a pleasing click.
"Afternoon Jess," said a voice from behind her. Jess spun around to see Shauna Wicks, the department's desk sergeant. She was opening the small fridge the various staff members used to store lunch. She dug about in the cramped mass of lunchboxes and sandwich bags, until she pulled out a packet of raw chicken breasts with a tug. Shauna stumbled slightly as the packet squeezed its way out.
"Hey Shauna," said Jess, "on your lunch too?"
"Yeah, you don't mind if I eat it here do you? I know it creeps some people out." Shauna took a seat at the small plastic table, formerly from someone's garden, that had been placed onto the small square of linoleum that designated the kitchen. It wasn't really a separate area, simply a counter set into one corner of the office area.
Jess thought about it for a moment. "No," she said, "I don't mind. I actually think I might have seen my toddler do worse things with food."
Shauna chuckled, "I hope your kid doesn't eat like me, that's a recipe for food poisoning that is." Shauna outstretched her thumb, and with a quick flick opened a slit across the plastic film, as though cut by a knife. She peeled back the wrapper and lifted one of the raw slabs of chicken. It was wet and slightly slimy. It shimmered in the office lights as she lifted it. With a moist slapping noise, she bit into it, tearing a great chunk from the meat. Liquid squirted across the tabletop. She swallowed it hungrily, gulping the meat down her gullet like a bird. Jess stared. "I'm sorry, was that too much?" asked Shauna.
"No, no no no no," said Jess, her voice a panic, "it's not your eating. Well, it is. It's not put me off, but it has given me an idea about my case." Jess pulled out a plastic chair and took a seat at the desk. "Shauna, I hope you don't mind me asking, but as a Ghula, what kind of control do you have over your body?"
Shauna narrowed her eyes, unsure of the question. "What do you mean? Like different from a regular human?"
"Yeah, what extra stuff can you do?"
"Well, I have basically complete control. Ghouls and Ghula, we're a kind of undead, but one where the soul is too tethered to the body, it can't leave after we die, i
nstead, our body still works but needs a lot of raw protein to work. Hence this," said Shauna, lifting her plastic tray of raw chicken slightly off the table. "Otherwise though, I'm dead as a doornail. I only breathe so I can talk. I have blood, but it doesn't do anything. I can block out pain or choose to feel it. Up to me. I tried going without pain for a bit, but I kept burning myself on the stove. We can regenerate back to the state we were in when we died. I don't sleep. Honestly, it's pretty useful. You see all the movies, zombies and ghosts and whatnot. It's all rotting flesh and eyeballs popping out. Turns out it’s less Living Dead more The Wolverine."
Jess nodded along. She sat there for a moment, thinking to herself. "Ok," she said finally. "I want to run something by you, it's a bit out there, but I think it might work."
Mark sat waiting. He had waited in one room, before being ushered to another. Then he was moved again. He was annoyed and tired, seemingly being bounced from one bureaucrat to the next, traipsing across the hospital, caught in some hellish loop of red tape and shirked responsibility. His current source of waiting was a young woman behind a desk, situated in a room labelled "Central Security Resources." She was currently on the phone, discussing his request with a separate, different clerk, in some other office somewhere else in the building. Mark had to admit that the Royal London hospital was giving the Metropolitan Police a good run for their money in the pointless busywork contest, were such a thing to exist.
"Ok Sir," said the woman after placing down the large beige phone handset. "I'm very sorry but unless you have a Section- "
"A section twenty-nine data protection release form. Got one right here." Mark produced the document from within his grey woolen coat with a flourish. The clerk looked visibly perturbed. She hadn't expected this.
"Ah well then, I suppose I should check again," she said.
"Check what?" asked Mark, fanning himself with the paperwork. "You checked, found out what I needed, I have it. We're all good to go."
"Well, I uh, I guess. Come through here please." She pressed a switch on the wall. There was a buzz and a wooden door placed into the wall next to the counter slipped slightly open.
Mark stepped through, walking into the tiny office space. Worn out chairs sat lazily behind desks last painted sometime in the early eighties. At the back of the office was a metal door, the kind you might find affixed to a high-quality bike shed. His escort placed a small key into a padlock holding the door closed and turned it. She removed the padlock, stopping momentarily to test its weight in her hand. Satisfied she typed a number into a small silver keypad. It was situated in a haphazardly cut hole in the plasterboard. The woman hunched over, arching her back to block his view of the numbers. There was a beep, followed by a green light from the keypad.
"In you go," said the clerk, "hope you find what you're looking for."
"Yeah," replied Mark, taking a seat before the bank of monitors that filled the small room. "Me too."
Lucille frowned, frustrated by what was unravelling before her. She had taken a slice of white bread from its loaf, placed it onto the chopping board, and had attempted to spread margarine over its surface, only to find that the margarine was colder than it should be. The bread had ripped and torn as she had slid the knife, rather than the bright yellow spread sliding across the bread as it should. She let out a long groan.
"Abbie!" she shouted, "did you turn the fridge temperature down?"
"Yes!" came the reply from the living room. "You had it up too high, the cola wasn't properly chilled."
"For fuck's sake," Lucille muttered to herself. She attempted a second slice, this one working a lot better, the now warmer margarine spreading evenly over its surface. She opened the packet of meat that had been dropped off by Aasif and Rajan. The meat inside was reformed turkey, shaped into the smiling face of a bear. Lucille took a slice, and slapped it onto the bread, dropping the second slice of bread on top the sandwich with a strange sort of elegance. She repeated her steps, creating a second sandwich before placing them onto two small china plates, thin lines of pink petals running around the outside of the porcelain. She picked the plates up, and strode into the living room, handing one of the plates over to Abbie, who was laying on the sofa, scrolling idly through Netflix.
"Aw, this one is all mangled," Abbie moaned, examining the sandwich she had been given.
Lucille took a seat in the recliner and shrugged. "Fridge was too cold. You made your bed, now you get to eat it."
Abbie stuck out her tongue, a beige glob of half-chewed bread going with it. She retracted her tongue and swallowed. "So, what do you want to watch?"
"Not a clue, anything on your mind?"
"You know," said Abbie. "I have no clue either." The screen spun wildly as she scrolled through the categories. "I think this serial killer documentary looks good."
"Pass," said Lucille. "At some point, you know someone is going to blame me for something I had nothing to do with. I'd rather not. Anything else?"
"Uh, there's a film about killer pterodactyls."
"Let's go with that," replied Lucille, nodding in agreement with herself. "Always did love a good horror."
Chapter Thirteen
The lights were dim, only a small glowing camping lantern providing any kind of illumination. It sat in the centre of the room, casting its sickly off-white light across the floor, causing each of the people around it to cast a long, distorted shadow. The figures stood around it milled about, unsure of themselves, still trying to make sense of their catastrophic escapade the night before. No one spoke, no one dared even look at each other, the echoing cries of lost comrades reverberating in their minds.
"I think," said Maximus finally breaking the silence, "that we need to discuss what happened."
"What happened," shouted Agrippina, "was that we got fucked. Instead of a handful of vampires, we found a fucking swarm. Look at us Maximus, this is it now, us four are what's left."
"The oracle mentioned nothing about- "he began in protest.
"Fuck the oracle! They clearly aren't as all-seeing as you thought. Listening to them has cost us four legionnaires in the last few days alone. Half our number Maximus! Half!" Agrippina leant against the plain concrete wall. The remaining legionnaires had assembled in the small building Pontius had owned. Pontius was gone now, along with Marcia and Claudius. They had retreated here as they had once planned, long ago, in case of emergency or discovery. They had never truly thought they would be using what they had optimistically called "the safe house". It had never been filled with supplies, no furniture bought, no walls painted. It was a large empty concrete building, once a small warehouse. Pontius it had transpired, had removed the fuses from the main box. It was probably for safety, but it meant the building was cold and dark. An ominous concrete husk, the legionnaires scuttling inside like parasites.
There was a loud cough from one of the other Legionnaires. It was Commodus, a thick built muscular man, hair cropped short, a bushy moustache resting on his upper lip. "I think," he said, "that we are getting a little heated here. We are here to help each other. These things will happen, not every hunt can be a win for us."
"He has a good point Agrippina. We shouldn't be fighting at a time like this," said Maximus. "We need to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and try again."
Agrippina replied with a snort of derision. She crossed her arms, fists held tight. "I agree, but I don't like it. Those fucking bloodsuckers got the better of us. I'm angry Maximus, not just at this situation, but how long have these fuckers been operating under our noses. What else goes on that we don't know about? That the oracle decides not to tell us about."
"That's not how it works, sadly. The oracle isn't all-knowing. And before you ask, don't bother, you know I won't elaborate. You know the rules," replied Maximus.
Agrippina uncrossed her arms and sighed. "Yes, secrecy above all, compartmentalize. Speaking of which having all of us holed up here is hardly compartmentalizing is it?"
"Those vamps will b
e out looking for us. At least if we're all together here we have a reasonable defensive position. It's just for a little while, whilst we regroup, get our footing a bit. Never thought we would have to use this place. Really wish Pontius had told me where those fuses are, there's a biting chill in here."
Commodus zipped up his jacket a little further. "I agree," he said. "Come on, lets at least try to get this place a little bit liveable.
That night, a few hours east of London, amid the waves, something stirred. On the beach known locally as botany bay, a figure staggered onto the shore, its hands resting on the pillars of white stone that erupted from the sand. The creature seemed to move in an almost dragging fashion, its feet leaden and heavy. As it approached the long stone staircase that led up from the beach to the streets on the cliff above, it lumbered into the light. It was a mottled grey thing, a fine fur covering it. Though it had a humanoid form, its hands and feet were webbed. Its head was a rounded snout, long whiskers protruding from its nose, its eyes pools of perfect black. The bizarre fusion of man and seal shuddered and then released a low slow moan. Across its chest a thin line of vibrant red appeared, before spreading, becoming a perfect split from head to toe. There was a visceral tearing noise and a torrent of blood as the beast split in two. From the spray of gore emerged another shape. A young woman, her hair a dark blonde, loose and wild, stepped from the creature's skin. It slopped to the floor like a discarded dress. The blood-soaked woman bent down, picked up the blubbery flapping grey skin, and continued to walk up the steps.
